The Devil's Evidence

by Simon Kurt Unsworth

  Could have done better.

  Maybe. He might have been able to put more pressure on the kindliest angels to leave the bodies for longer before removing them so that he could examine them in more detail, he might have been able to persuade Mayall to let the scribe alone so that he could question it. So many mights and maybes, he thought, so many times I could have made things different.

  Thinking about Heaven was a distraction from seeing what was before him, but eventually he had no choice and he had to study the scene carefully. The Joyful were naked, staked to poles that filled the clearing beyond the tunnel’s mouth, and most were battered and bloody. Fool thought some might be dead, their skin marked with traceries of vein and their legs dark with old, thick blood that had seeped downward to the bottom half of their bodies. Each human’s feet had been lashed to the bottom of the pole with thick cords knotted around their ankles, the braids digging into the skin and crusted with blood that had clotted into whorls and pellets, and their arms had been pulled tight down and around the back of the poles so that their chests were thrust out and their shoulders strained forward. Most appeared unconscious, heads hanging loose, hair swinging, but some were awake, heads up, and as they looked around they were wailing and crying and screaming.

  Here and there caretaker angels hung by their wings, pinned to the stakes with huge rusting nails.

  In among the Joyful and the angels were metal braziers, drums with punctured sides in which low flames guttered, the smoke rising from them greasy and black. Beside each brazier was a knotted sack that Fool recognized as being made from the material from the graves by the chapel. They’d found the remains of the books as well, it seemed.

  Fool went to speak again but another hiss and gesture from Gordie stopped him. He was pointing at the far end of the clearing, where the creature from the Sleepers’ Cave, or one similar to it, was making its way out of the bushes and was approaching the Joyful. Its movement was jerky and hard, looked painful in its stretching and twisting but was still fast, and it covered half the distance between the wall of shrubs and the tunnel in a few seconds.

  It was a different creature than the one from the cave, Fool saw, smaller and more compact, with fewer of those segments, each joined to the others with those twisting, writhing strips of blackness that flexed like fingers with too many knuckles. In Hell’s light it was slightly easier to see the creature than it had been to see the one in the cave, and Fool could make out more of it. He was struck again, as he looked at it, how much it seemed as though an entire spiderweb had come alive and was moving around.

  Each individual part was different; most were vaguely humanlike but tended to hunch over, limbs dragging until it needed to do something other than move, at which point it would straighten up and assume a more upright posture. Some of the parts had arms, he saw, others limbs that flailed or wriggled. He saw a mess of faces, some with no eyes and some with many, mouths open or closed, teeth large or small. Sometimes, the bands contracted and pulled two of the pieces together where they knotted into each other, creating a single mass that could break apart when needed, the two heads and multiple limbs working together.

  As Fool watched, a part of the thing detached itself from the central mass and moved out, dropping low and sniffing the ground. Even on all fours it was clumsy and uncoordinated, jerking and twitching as it swept back and forth, searching for something. Searching for them? Fool suspected so, and held his breath as he waited to see if it would find their trail.

  It came closer, head so low that it pushed furrows through the mud, curls of dirt peeling away from it as it drove on. Its face, covered in striations and marks, was strangely familiar to Fool, long and square and topped with opaque black eyes above a pair of wide, pulsating nostrils. Its mouth was wide and filled with square teeth, drool spilling over lips that were black and pulled back from the teeth. Why did Fool think he recognized it? Was it one of the things from outside of everywhere he had watched in the tunnel between Heaven and Hell, what felt like a lifetime ago?

  It must be.

  It came closer, the sound of it harsh, its inhalations ragged. It was making another noise, under the snapped intakes of breath, a low keening that reminded Fool of a kettle coming to a boil. It pushed through the soil, closer still, only a line of bushes separating them from it. Gordie took Fool’s hand and squeezed and from the corner of his eye Fool saw that the man’s face was ghostly white, his eyes wide. His lips were trembling as though trying to contain the scream that was massing in his mouth, the same scream that was building in Fool’s own mouth as he bit back on it and the thing pushed closer.

  Its nose was now edging against the far side of the bushes, its eyes looking through the twisted stalks and leaves at Fool, black orbs peering. He tried to shrink back noiselessly, hoping that his black clothes were a camouflage and painfully aware that his face would be cast as a pale circle against the dark behind him, that if the thing looked even slightly to Fool’s side it would see Gordie’s and Summer’s near-white robes and the bag Gordie carried.

  Another long sniff.

  It blinked, a milky film smearing across the glistening eyeballs, and then pressed itself lower into the earth, pushing against the bushes. Fool wriggled back, looking over the thing’s head and shoulders at its back. Its shoulder blades were ridged out, and between them a thick knot of the black connectors pulsed, buried into its flesh. It sniffed again and the cables surged, clenching and unclenching along their length.

  Another thrust forward and its head came between the bushes, was inches from Fool’s own and he was staring into its eyes. It blinked and more of the film smeared across them, covering the blackness, thick pus squeezing out from the edges of the blink. It’s blind, he thought, it stinks, and hoped that Gordie had seen it as well, would stay as quiet as he could.

  The thing’s arms came around, questing through the earth by Fool, not hands at the end of the arms but pincers flexing open and closed, the dark earth coating it, and then the connectors contracted, pulling it back, and it jerked its way across the clearing and rejoined the main mass of the thing.

  Another piece of the mass came loose, this one larger, a low bulky thing that spread out across the ground like an oil stain, the connectors in its back surging and pulsing as it moved out, its limbs grasping the ground and dragging itself along as though it was climbing a vertical wall rather than scuttling across horizontal earth. Fool tensed, risked reaching down to draw his gun, pushing it ahead of him. The thing was too big to kill with a handgun, but he might be able to delay it long enough for them to run, although where they would go and whether they’d be fast enough, he had no idea. Instead of coming toward them, though, the piece of the thing from outside went to the nearest Joyful and slithered up her back. Its face was wide and dark as it rose above the woman, pulling her head back so that her throat was exposed, and Fool thought it was going to slice her open and drink her blood but it did not.

  Its face stretched, mouth opening wide, and it clamped onto the back of her head with an audible crunch. The Joyful opened her eyes and shrieked, blood running down the sides of her face. The thing sucked at the back of her head and the cables emerging from its back pulsed, throbbing as whatever it was taking from her flowed down them and back to the larger mass. Each section within the mass twitched as the pulses reached it, limbs spasming, cables between them twisting over each other and tangling. The woman screamed again, her voice cracking at the top of the scream, her face flushed red underneath the blood, saliva spilling from the corner of her mouth in long, foamy strings.

  Eventually, the thing let the woman go and her head fell back to her chest. Her hair was sodden with the thing’s spittle and her own blood, dark with them, and she moaned as she swung on the pole, the skin of her tethered legs stretching around the cords, tearing slightly and bleeding. The thing retreated to the mass behind it, moving slower now, replete, and another part took its place as it slithered into the black bulk and the cables swarmed around it and
took it from view.

  This new part did not approach a Joyful. Instead, it went to the nearest brazier, taking a pile of the torn books from the bag, and dropped them into the flames. Sparks leaped as the flames suckled hungrily and the smoke thickened. Faces appeared in the smoke, emerging from the random chaos only to fall away to nothing again. The faces were openmouthed, eyes clenched shut, and they screamed silently as they were born and lost again. Were they the owners of the books, he wondered, or were these the faces of the books themselves, howling as they burned?

  Its job done, the segment also retreated to the mass, and the thing slithered away, edges swelling and collapsing as it went, until it was gone from sight among the distant bushes.

  Fool stood first. Gordie followed, then Summer, and they stepped out of the cover and into the clearing. Fool went to the nearest Joyful, tilted his head back so that he could see the man’s face. It was older, the skin a rich brown, the eyes shut but not still, the lids constantly moving as the eyes beneath darted back and forth. Fool stroked the man’s face, wanted to say something to soothe him but could think of nothing. What comfort was there, after all? This was Hell.

  Fool was turning away from the man when he saw it, a faint glow from just past the plant line. The plants were taller here, over head height, and the glow was coming from within them. He hesitated, torn between carrying on and investigating.

  Carry on and stop the war.

  Investigate and maybe find the thing that would stop the war, maybe find the piece of evidence that neither Heaven nor Hell could ignore.

  Carry on.

  Investigate, because that was what he did and it was what he was and the choices he had were limited and small and dictated by the Information Man that he had been and was still becoming and the Commander of the Information Office that he had no desire to be but was anyway. Investigate, because that was, really, all there was.

  He started toward the glow, walking quietly, aware that there were probably more of the things from outside all around him. Did they sleep? Or were they always alert, wary of the place they had come to and the dangers it contained? He held his gun loosely and tried to watch all sides at once as he went to the glow, and it took him less than a minute to find out what was causing it.

  Israfil.

  The angel had been bound much like the Joyful and her compatriot angels, her feet lashed to a fat pole that had been driven into the earth and her arms pulled tight behind her. Her fire was down to almost nothing now, mere flickers of flame like match-head sparks igniting and then flaring out. Her hair had been shorn and lay around her in long hanks that had been trampled into the mud.

  When he went behind her, Fool saw that the stake had been jammed against her back between the remains of her wings, the bloodied stumps forced apart by the wood. The wings by her feet had been torn away, the wounds of their removal still bleeding, rubbed continuously raw by the ropes that bound her. The rear of her head was covered with countless tooth marks and splits, some still weeping thick red liquid, others wearing crusts of dried blood. A single large scab hung, half torn away, above Israfil’s right eye. Her left was gone, a gored hole in her face where the orb used to be.

  At Fool’s approach, Israfil lifted her head and looked at him. He could tell that she wasn’t able to see properly, kept squinting and opening and closing her remaining eye.

  “Israfil,” he said, “I’m so sorry.”

  “Fool?” she asked, and her voice sounded like two ropes dragging together, dry and rasping and torn. “You found me. You’re a better monkey than I thought.”

  “We all are,” said Fool. “We’ll help you.”

  Fool went to untie the cords around her ankles, but pulling on them made Israfil cry out. Her flame blossomed for a moment, the fires skimming across her skin in a shallow wave, but then faded back. He pulled again and she cried again, the sound choking away to nothing. Close to, he saw the cords were made of thick vines that had been wrapped around each other and pulled so that they frayed into each other, forming a tangle that was impossible to untie.

  “What can we do?” Gordie had come to stand beside him, was staring up at the angel. Even battered and bloody, she was beautiful. Summer reached up and tried to wipe the blood from the angel’s face, but she moved her head away, avoiding the touch.

  “You’d burn, little girl,” she said. “Even like this, my skin is hotter than you can stand. Thomas Fool, the monkey from Hell, are you still here?”

  “Of course,” he said, stepping into her view. She smiled at him, lips splitting back from teeth that were as white as the snow in Heaven had been. Her tongue traced the line of them, emerging from her mouth, a dark pink worm that slipped delicately out to play along her upper lip, tasting her own blood.

  “Little monkey,” said Israfil, sounding almost fond of him. “You found me when no one else has managed it. Do something for me?”

  “I can’t get you free,” he said, wanting to hold this beaten thing in his arms but not daring to. “We haven’t a blade to cut and the knots are too tight for us to loosen. We could find a rock and try to rub them apart.”

  “No,” she said, “I don’t want you to. I’m tired and I hurt and I’m nearly done. My soul will return to God when I die. I have faith in that. No, the thing I want you to do is simple.”

  “Anything.”

  “Avenge me. I’m an angel of war, Fool, an angel of fire and sword and vengeance. Be my fire. Be my sword. Be my vengeance.”

  “Yes,” he said simply, and knew that he would be, or would die trying. That she had treated him so badly didn’t matter, he would still do it because that was right, that was justice. He would be the vengeance of Heaven for damaging something so perfect, so wonderfully, terribly beautiful. “I give you my word.”

  “A monkey’s word,” she said. “I suppose, at this point, it’s the best I can get. I’m grateful. It’s fair. Go, Fool. I have no advice to give you but to be yourself. You’ve done better than I ever believed you could, and you’re still free, unlike me. Go. Be my revenge.”

  He didn’t answer, instead holding his gun up and pointing it at her, muzzle inches from her forehead. She smiled.

  “No,” said Summer. “You can’t.”

  “Better this than leaving her to be fed upon any more.”

  “I don’t mean that, I mean you can’t because they’ll know if you do, the things will know you’ve been here. They’ll know we’re trying to stop them. It’s too dangerous. Israfil, I’m sorry, truly, but he can’t.”

  “She’s right, Fool,” said Israfil. “Just go. My soul is free once this body dies, and I’ve enjoyed my life and will enjoy it more yet. Go.”

  “We need to go,” said Gordie from behind Fool. Fool nodded and backed away. As he lost sight of the angel in the plants, the last thing he saw her do was nod once at him, still smiling, and then her head rested down again and she reminded him of the things that were sometimes strung up in Hell’s fields to scare the smaller flying demonkind away from the crops.

  Still walking backward, still looking at the angel even though he couldn’t see her, Fool led them back to the clearing in silence. Once there, he set off swiftly around its edge, around the massed and waiting Joyful, almost running, body complaining at every step, and he ignored it because that was just pain, just feelings, and he had to drive on through them because this was almost too big to hold now; this was growing and escalating almost out of his grasp. Keep hold, little reaching Fool, he thought, and then they came to the first of the paths leading from the clearing. Continuing around, he found two more, each well used, each heading in a different direction.

  “Which one?” asked Fool, handing over to Gordie. He had always had a better grasp of Hell’s geography than Fool, and he didn’t disappoint now.

  “This one,” said Gordie, picking a path that sloped down from the clearing. “I’ve got a theory. I may not be right, but I think perhaps I am.”

  “A theory?”

  “A the
ory. I’m right or I’m wrong, this is as good a one as any at this point.”

  Fool couldn’t argue, didn’t have the strength, and they set off. The path was narrow but passable and they moved quickly, Fool leading and Summer at the rear, Gordie in the middle carrying the bag of torn books and the demon and the scale.

  “Where are we going?” asked Fool, each word escaping on a pant.

  “I think we’re heading to water,” said Gordie. He sounded, if anything, more tired than Fool did.

  “Why water?”

  “Because I think we’re on one of the islands in the middle of Solomon Water,” said Gordie. “I think we’re out behind the banks of mist that sit in its middle. I said—didn’t I?—that I’d seen them on the map, that’d I’d been hearing rumors for a while about them.”

  “There are always rumors,” said Fool.

  “But these were consistent,” said Gordie. “They said the same things. Or at least, they were before I…you know.”

  “Before you died,” said Summer. “Before you died, Gordie. You have to say it. You have to be clear about your past, about the part you know about, at least. It’s the only thing we have that’s ours.”

  “Yes,” said Gordie. “Before I died. The map confirmed it, and I think that’s where we are.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just a feeling.”

  The bushes at the side of the path were crowding in now, track narrowing, the leaves brushing against them, snagging at Fool’s jacket and trousers. He pushed the branches ahead of him aside, stopping them from swinging back until Gordie and Summer were past them, crouching because the ceiling of wet leaves and interlocking branches was lowering, separating them from the sky, and then something at their side groaned.