Bettina is frowning.
'See, that's bullshit. Being pretty ain't no way to get respect. Not from anyone.'
'There was no respect to be had. Believe me. Beauty was, still is, one sure form of authority in the world. People crave it around them. How many people do you know, really, who are completely immune to aesthetics? Besides, I'm the Queen of Hell. This is a mystical point of view you're listening to, not a manifesto.'
Bettina sighs. Nods.
'If I may continue... Times changed and eventually, no one could punish me for how I looked. Photographs and film and light ruled the world by then and never was beauty so revered as when the movies took over the world. Goya showed you the photo, didn't he?'
'Yeah.'
'I looked good, didn't I?'
'Sure.'
'Beauty is not real, Lark. It gives a woman influence but it signifies nothing but itself. But I became a model because I was pleased to use the fake authority of my looks to wrestle me real authority. Men lined up to ogle me, photograph me but they never realised what it meant when they gave me money to do it. They handed over the only thing that mattered to them. I turned that into more money. I turned it into a new education for myself. I turned it into political influence. Actual power. I thought that irony was excellent.'
'But then.'
'The War... it roused all manner of hidden powers of the world. My husband amongst them. All that death, it has woken up his hunger for me. He sought me out but I wasn't quite ready to go. I joined the army in '37. They had use for me. I fought for three different militaries. Then it was over but I could see that the human world had sharply changed again. When the battles were done, a million million men were dead and women were not keen to return to their lack of authority. I was one of them. But the Devil... is the Devil and though I was eager to try my own new found power, to see if it could be exercised more freely in a new century, I was bound to him. Though I had one last task'.
Bettina scoffs. 'What if you ain't what they call beautiful? Cos, you know, that's all shit, right?'
'I'm not an advocate for social change, dead woman. I'm out for me.'
Silence for a moment. Bettina gets that but you can tell she's not happy with it. Ava picks it back up.
'I became a model just one more time. I let them photograph me and was pleased. A lasting glamour, bound into it to cover my tracks. To prevent people like you finding me and conjuring with my names or image. But I charged horrendously for it, one final exchange of glamour for real power.
A final spell. I used that image to fuel my own strength. I used the strength of all the women who were changing their world and then, well, I used that spell for strength.'
'All that shit and you went back to being a wife?' Bettina seems annoyed.
'I never thought it was an act of weakness to be a wife. I wonder why you do?'
Bettina just rolls her eyes.
'Besides, I wasn't just going home to my man, adventures over. I was honouring a pact and I was enacting a plan. Hell... isn't what you think it is. People get used to torture quickly. They grow to love it. And the demons are desperately bored by now. There are communities there, societies. New races born from unholy coupling between Eudaemons and people. He hates it, you know but it all became too much bother to stop the guards fraternising. And when you've grown an addiction to pain, what's the point in torturing you?
Yes, I saw that hell could change once, it could change again. "As above, so below".
Hell has its own strange stories. The morning after our marriage, I could already see that I was right all along. We had sex. The first time ever for him. Did you know the Devil was a virgin? Strange thought. But he was done with it. Which means he was done with me. He was already, in the back of his mind, looking for a way to end our partnership. But I had planned well. I had that glamour strengthening me.
I had power. I had tasted his seed. I had touched him as no one else and I knew that, no matter what he says, the Devil hates freedom more than anything. Hell is supposed to be a prison. He's a jailer. I had a freedom spell. I was changed. I became something new in all the world. An avatar of the new kind of woman, who had access to authority she created for herself.
You might resent that self-created authority, you might fear it, you might scuttle from it like a cockroach because it is different from yourself. But it exists and only maggots deny it. Many who know me, they think I'm the Queen of Hell because I refuse to be limited. They know nothing of ambition.'
She's looking out the window. Pride in her voice.
'The Devil fled from me when I unveiled that final spell. Changed and free as I was, he couldn't stand it. I was freedom and he was a jailer. Black and white.
He ran. My magic burned him. I was freedom now and that hurts him. I didn't want it to. It was never my plan. I wanted to share Hell with him. To show him that true power is not an exercise in hierarchy. A husband and wife fighting for hierarchy is a reductive game and someone has to end it. Me.'
'You scared the Devil?'
'I scared the Devil. What my ability to make myself anew meant scared him truly.'
Bettina shakes her head.
'Hell changes I said. That is good what could be a more perfect enemy of God than a world where the old structures, old battles, are ended and revolution is perpetual. But the Devil hates freedom, even, especially, mine. So he's run. He took my memory again, of course. Took me years to get it back. I came to earth and he took it away again.
He's fucked with me every time I thought I was just a human woman, of course. On and off for fifty years. He can't keep away from me. It's a need. But then, my friend, who summoned me and introduced me to you, Lark, she gave me my memory back too soon. That's what started all this. The Devil saw, for good and all, that we are joined and his amnesia games just delayed the inevitable.
Since then, he's run and run and I've had enough of his fleeing. I want us to rule hell together and if that causes him pain... he's dished out enough, he can take it. He'll get used to someone else's freedom.'
Silence for a bit. Just nod. Wasn't expecting that.
'So what the fuck are you now? You trying to tell me Rosie the Riveter is alive and well and rules over Hell?'
Ava goes silent herself. Then laughs.
Even her laugh is a lie. So who prayed to you and gave you memories?
v
The Devil's running from his woman because she wanted an equal slice of the pie. Guess he's not down with the women's lib. Alright.
Ava is still hunting him. Someone smart enough, strong enough, with a will to do me harm, bought her up. X, we'll call her. X. So X summoned Ava knowing Ava would drag me in.
Who's X? What's the issue with me? There's a lot of cats got grudges but... Queen of Hell doesn't fight in their weight. Less someone got real good real quick. Scarlet? Katanya?
No. Maybe. Fuck.
What's the endgame on that? What's the percentage?
Bettina sits beside me, arms crossed in the back of the taxi. 'What's all that shit about looking good? Fuck man.'
'Dunno. Like she said, I think it was all metaphorical -
'Metaphorical. Shit.'
'Anyways, she was just talking for herself and she's a thousand years old. How's a mother feel about it different than you? Your grandmother?'
'She still wrong.'
'Could be.'
'Being a chick ain't never been nothing but a pain in my balls, man.'
Ain't got nothing to say to that.
Now we definitely need a map to chart courses. Devil will keep at me until I call off Ava and Ava ain't getting called off. I could hit at X but... Can't open up a whole new angle. Just don't have the time. Late afternoon traffic. Cab is moving slow and eating up my money.
Funny, more I got, the more I worry about it. Couldn't spend ten grand in a hurry if I tried.
Which is why it's weird when the cop pulls us over.
Bettina is ready for it before I am. Driver swears under his
breath. So busy thinking things through, takes me a while to register all this.
Then the cop, those big mirrored aviator shades on his face, wearing his helmet puts his head through the window. Pulls back in his lips. Fangs, yellow and jagged.
'I smell her on you.'
Traffic all around. Cab driver looks up at him. Eyes go wide and he just averts his eye, looks ahead without blinking. See the finger-breaking pressure in his hands on the wheel. Sometimes, that's just how people react to it when the hidden world jumps up and shouts boo.
Person, not ready for it, even if they are, it hits ‘em: This shit is real. Fact it's just a regular day, he's just working an afternoon shift, that it's so normal everywhere else just makes it worse. Some wire in the head sparks bad. Overloads. Don't usually run or scream or whatever. Just blank out. Nothing to do with how stupid, how smart, someone is. Just their makeup. Just how they see the world.
'Yeah, we saw her.' No point lying.
'Get out of the vehicle.'
'No.'
'Get out of the vehicle.'
Bettina leans forward and punches him in the nose. It breaks. Blood spatters onto his glasses, drips down his chin. Long tongue, what do they call it... bifurcated, starts licking it up, two halves waving at us between each swipe.
She hits him again and his glasses shatter. Drive into his eyes. Just looks at us, sclera bleeding.
'You. Hit your head against the steering wheel until you are dead or I'll tell you what I do to your father every night in hell.'
Driver starts. Bang! Blood by the third hit. Bone coming soon.
Time like this, find out a thing about yourself. You a hard motherfucker, let a guy beat his brains out on the steering wheel of his cab? Watch for a second. Hand on the door. Bettina puts her hand on my chest. Wait. When I see the bone, I figure I'm not such a stone cold motherfucker after all. Guy is a civilian and doesn't deserve that.
Out. Devil comes up and he's on me like it's prison. Presses me against the cab. Drives my knee into the panelling with his. Knocks my head against the window.
He can't kill me. Hold onto that while he pats me down, gets a rabbit punch in the short ribs while he goes. Winded. I hate that. Hands behind me forcing my arm into hammer lock. Cuffs on. All that shit hurts. Bettina watches for a second, waiting to see if I have a play. My yell when the lock goes on me makes up her mind. She comes at him but he just looks at her and she goes freeze frame still.
There's rules for him but he's the Devil. Figure him the kind not to bend ‘em?
My head hits steel one more time and I'm in the back of the patrol cruiser. Grate up between us.
There's another cop in the front set. Blown his brains all over the side window. Head lolls. Don't have to look inside his skull from this angle but I can smell him. Dead body has a sharpness to it, even if it doesn't lose control of itself as it goes. They don't always do that. But putrefaction is in that car with me.
'If you've hurt Bettina there's gonna be a problem.' Know it'll sound stupid but you can't let some things go without an answer.
'Shut the fuck up you miserable little cunt and be glad I can't hurt you.' The link he forged when I summoned him. Can't do nothing to me. Then he mutters. 'Not directly.'
Won't help Bettina. Stay silent. Hold tight, find a way to help her.
'I told you your story isn't a Faust story. Because, you know, I thought we had an understanding! A deal! You keep that crazy slapper away! You get rid of her and I stop fucking with your every single waking second!'
Spittle covers the windshield.
Driving like a motherfucker but he can't hurt anyone. They just... move aside for him.
Times like this, said you learn a thing or two about yourself?
I learn coming off a nasty shot to the back, the bracelets cutting into my wrists and the Devil driving like Big Daddy Roth drew him, I can still hit the Gnosis. You realise pain don't matter so much.
Bettina doesn't shed hair or skin like the living so there's nothing like that for me here. But we been through some shit together, man. Track the spell, focussing on her and, yeah, it's just, call it a stupefaction. Imagine picking a lock, abstract it, just the clicks as the pliers hit metal. Like a bat echoing. Send that image at her, dark bat come to free here. Hope it speeds her waking up.
Cab driver? Sorry pal. You got all you're getting from me.
Time I'm finished with that, he's on the driving still heading straight north.
'So what did she tell you? What cunting lies?'
'Said she got the freedom itch. All that new thinking in the world. She comes back to you, you're allergic to her now. And you run.'
'I never ran I'm the Destroying fucking Angel! I didn't run when Michael and his band of fucking bum chums came at me, doing the boss’s work!'
'You wanna call people unfashionable names or you want to talk?'
Few more minutes of him suggesting the Seraphim are up each other in ways that seem a little unrealistic and he chills.
'What. Did. She. Say?'
'Just that.'
'And you believed her? Didn't you?'
Pride, man. Me, I'm just some guy, some human and he's the Devil. He won't admit, even acknowledge, maybe he's in the wind. Time to stir something up.
'Man, everyone likes to look cool. Even her. She put a spin on it, makes her look good.'
'That's fucking right! She's a snake, Lark! Women are all snakes!'
Not the first time I heard a guy go on this rant. All women are liars, blah blah. Boring.
'Let me make this clear magician. We never signed a contract but we still have a deal. I marked you so I can get at you. So you can't hide. No spell or allure or conjure will hide you from me or harm me. I cannot be exorcised by you. But I can't go home while she's there and I can't leave the City while you're in it.'
We're heading north. 200 Street. 202nd. Wheeling in and out. Freight trucks on the road, heading out from the docks. Fucking station wagons with families in them, heading in for the shows late Saturday afternoon. We move in and out of them, tyres screeching. Heading to the bridge out of town. This is grim.
A while back, Elliot and the Library crew figured there was no percentage in letting me go even if I did quit. Didn't want to risk me hiring on with another crew. Put a geas on me. A strong one. I can never leave the City. Never even tried. Can feel it on me, down in my blood. No more tested it than I needed to put my hand on a stove to find out it's hot.
Haven't been this far north in years.
'Stop.' But the Devil just looks up at me in the rear vision mirror.
Grins. Waves his tongues.
'So let me make this clear,' he says, like a teacher.
Ever had a bad allergic reaction? Throat closing up?
Or been strangled? That shit starts up now. Breathe deep but just a fraction gets through.
'You will tell her to leave me be. Or what you're feeling now -'
My gums start to bleed. A lot.
'- will feel like a fucking fond memory of fucking Christmas! Do -'
Piss myself. Old bruises in my leg bloom again.
'- you understand?'
'How. The fuck. Do that?' Can barely speak. Force it out.
Then we pass 205th, last road before the bridge out of town. And that's enough to activate the curse fully. My throat closes like a fist. Full asthma panic. Blackness in my vision. Strangulation agony.
'Find a way.' He slows the car down but doesn't stop. 'Get out.'
'N-N-'
Reaches around. Pushes me out.
It's not so bad, the fall. Bad gravel rash but the leather jacket takes a lot. Bruises on my arms for weeks. Eyes filled up with water, see the tollbooths leading to the bridge north.
YOU ARE NOW LEAVING -
No I'm not. Talking to the geas, the sign, whatever.
HAVE A SAFE TRIP.
Haha.
Away from the Devil. But in four lanes of traffic. Horns blare. Turn south and immediately the pain less
ens. Geas responds to intent straight away. Swallowing mouthfuls of blood I somehow make it back to the side of the overpass. Vault a barrier. Land in a walkway, service road, pathway, whatever, for engineers and working crews. Lay on my back, breathing easier, then just sucking down air like it's new. Use a wall for balance and stand up. Take a step. Fall. My leg. Bruised like when Ludo went to town and it's killing now.
Keep walking south and they fade some but never vanish. Breath eases all the way. Gums clot up but I'm still spitting red.
Phone makes a sound. Ignore it, keep walking. Hit a pedestrian bridge soon enough. Each step, feel like someone's punching the side of my thigh, my calf. Hard.
Make it to the bridge pedestrian stair but I'm not ready to walk down yet. One fucking miracle. My darts are bent but one or two are smokeable. Hang on. The lighter's fucked though.
Overhead, muffled, car sounds echoing as I study the concrete slab of the underside of the bridge. Top of a long stairway, leads down to the City street. Takes a while but I get to the bottom of the stairs, one at a time and rest awhile at the bottom.
Suit and ties walk around, some heading to ferries, some heading to subway stations. The zig zag gazes of judgemental fuckers bounce off me like bullets off the Popemobile.
Go to light up but there's no use. Throw the lighter in frustration. Grab the handrail, haul myself up. Phone reminds me I have a message. Take it out. Face is smashed and it's fading fast. Still, enough left in it to read what it wants to tell me.
Hit Gnosis one more time, just in case. Be fucking stupid to cop a rune this far in.
Wave of pain. Breathe through it. Keep Gnosis.
An address. Then.
MAKING US GO AFTER THE HOLLOW TONIGHT. CANNOT TALK FREE. K.
Jesus Christ. Katanya.
Thirteen
i
Luanne wasn't lying. Greatma had that vision. But it was a lot more specific than she'd told Lark.
No one ever wanted Scarlet to leave their town. Abscess, population 1389. But she was wild in those days. Daddy caught her with boys at 14 and tried to beat the badness out of her but Scarlet just laughed and whistled along with the birch. She went up to Greatma's shack, learning everything the old woman to teach about herbs and the names of spirits and how to spoil milk with a glance, or get a lady unexpectedly in a family way out of trouble with just a shadow. How to charm a snake, how to cure croup or gout. How to make the little night spirits leave you alone. A curse to plague the neighbour and his hounds. All that. Greatma loved her and kept no secrets.
Devil City Page 17