by M. K. Gibson
“Cyborg eh?” Maz asked, ignoring the nerdy tech talk.
I could see this was going to be an interesting conversation. I turned to the holo projection of my mom and dad.
“Hey guys, you mind giving T another lap around your lab and library? Maybe y’all could come up with a plan to retrieve T and Grimm’s gear from their old HQ.”
“It was a pleasure to meet you both,” Grimm said, staring at my mother and partially ignoring my father. “I do hope we may speak again in the near future.”
“It has been lovely talking to you, Mr. Grimm. I would very much like to speak to you again and pick through your brain,” my mother said.
“I’m right here,” my dad said jokingly to my mom. “Can you flirt another time?”
“I seem to recall the vow was until death do us part,” my mom joked. She always had a messed-up sense of humor. Must be where I got it from. “Besides, he is so handsome.”
“OK, that’s pleasantly disturbing. T, do you mind?” I asked as I rubbed my face, trying to ignore that my dead-ish, holographic mother was flirting with the oldest man on the planet.
“Da, let us go,” T said to my parents. “Big boys need talky time.” The short mech preservation tank waddled off as my parental projections skipped ahead. As they walked away I heard T asking my dad what he thought of a plan involving an army of mechanized ants and tunneling. After they left I turned back to Maz and his question for me.
“Yeah, a cyborg,” I responded. Maz had been looking for the answer to my longevity, strength, speed, and healing. Now he had it. I could see in his yellow eyes he thought he had me. I lit a smoke and poured myself a drink and waited for him to make the next move.
Maz eyed me up and down, looking for the surgical scars. I caught his eyes and shook my head. He looked puzzled.
“Not that kind, hoss,” I said to Maz. “Something different.”
“Well, am I going to have fun with this, or what?” Maz asked, mischievously. This was what I was waiting for.
“Nope, I don’t think you are,” I said confidently.
“Oh?” Maz asked, crossing his arms and leaning to rest his elbows on the workbench, cradling his chin in his hands. The scaly red demon oozed arrogance. While I always liked him and our times together, I could never forget he was a demon. And corruption was at all times at the heart of who and what he was.
“Yeah, that isn’t going to happen.”
“Really?” the demon purred.
“Yeah. I guess you are already looking for a way to exploit that, aren’t you?”
“Oh, indeed I am.” I could see the wheels in his head moving, machinations of how he would blackmail me.
“Way I see it, you don’t really have anything on me. The good people at the bank of Mammon are sure to have realized I’ve had the same DNA on file with every BEAST transaction for a long time now. So someone already knows the long-lived part. The cyborg part?” I shrugged. “I’m a different type of cyborg, one that doesn’t burn out and die quickly. So what?”
“That alone has value.” Maz smirked as if he had me in checkmate. Just the opening gambit, my friend.
“You sure that has value? Truth is, the tech only works on me. Coded to my DNA. But even if you don’t understand it or believe it, I will make it more valuable to you to shut your mouth. Since I have you beaten already,” I said.
“Beaten?” he asked. I saw the anger in him rising. The pieces were moving; he knew the net was closing.
I poured Grimm and me a couple fingers of whiskey, intentionally leaving Maz out. “Hey Maz,” I started. I paused for effect, and to light a smoke. “When was the last time you were at the police station? When did you last wear your mantle of office?” I asked.
Maz’s eyes widened for a brief second. I saw a flicker of contempt and recognition. I turned toward Grimm for a moment, and he nodded his head.
“You have been missing for what, over two weeks now? You’ve been drugged and held captive by a human and a cyborg. You have been made to look the fool for one in your position. How many underlings would use this information to remove you and take up the bishop’s mantle? That’s checkmate, old friend.”
I poured another glass of whiskey and pushed it a couple of inches along the table at my demon friend. Maz rolled his eyes and reached over and took the drink. “You said something about making things more valuable for me?”
Glad to see he was on board. No doubt he was screaming inside. But as Demon Psych 101 states, demons never express displeasure before weaker beings. And they clearly consider humans weaker beings.
“Yeah, I did. I have a proposal for you that you may like. But first, we need to know what knowledge, if any, you have about the attack on the outer town of Midheim.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about. I have never heard of Midheim,” Maz said.
I turned toward Father Grimm. “You satisfied?” I asked.
“He spoke no lie. Yes, I am satisfied,” Grimm said. He looked disappointed. In a deep dark recess of my being, I realized, so was I. That meant some other player was involved. Someone sent the hit squad to Midheim right after Grimm and I showed up. That was no coincidence. It would have been so much simpler to nail Maz to the wall for this. Now, another mystery was out there for us to solve.
“What’s your offer?” Maz asked, sounding intrigued. The thought of a deal was a drug to demons.
“I will cut you in on fifteen percent of all my lightrunning business for one year, provided my cyborg nature remains between us for now. The terms are non-negotiable. If you do not accept these terms, your embarrassment at our hands will become public knowledge.” I was expecting Maz to be mad, or barter. Instead, he just smiled.
“I am so proud of you,” he said, in an oily purr.
“I’m not done,” I said. I slid him a large brown envelope. Inside was video evidence from the attack on Midheim as well as an outline of my plan. Maz opened it and scanned through it all.
“Are you insane?” he asked.
“Probably. But I think we both know it could work,” I responded.
“Yeah, it just might. You do realize the risk, don’t you? Along with the whole new batch of people who will want to kill you?”
“I don’t think it can be helped,” Grimm interjected. I nodded.
“What are you doing with this guy, Salem? Really?” Maz asked.
The question was not an easy one. I had been wondering it myself for some time now. Sometimes the answer was a long convoluted justification. Other times it was a denial of self. Trying to make sense in a senseless world. But the real answer was the shortest and truest.
“It feels right,” I told Maz. He recoiled a bit, as if truth and purity…burned him. Hell, it probably did.
“Enjoy being the fucking hero then. They always live oh so long in this world,” Maz said sarcastically.
“I’ll try. And you enjoy being a fucking asshole. Just do what we ask, man.”
“Well, I don’t have much choice, do I?”
“Not really, no,” I said.
Maz stood up and walked over to the fridge and got himself a beer. He popped the top and drank it down in a few gulps. He then grabbed a second.
“Well, it is obvious you still want something. Out with it,” said Maz.
I looked at Grimm and he gave me the nod. “What could a demon do with a soul?”
“Are we back on this? Didn’t we already establish a demon can’t be sold a soul for power since the transubstantiation?”
“Indulge us,” Grimm said.
“Fine. Bear in mind I was born topside. But back in the old days, demons from the Pit were given access to souls by those who died and came to Hell. Well, some of the souls anyway. Most of it went back to Him. But keep in mind, even a percent of a soul multiplied by billions and billions of sinners is a lot. Those who wanted a whole soul had to enter your world by a Hellgate or by summoning. Once topside they could be given some or all of a human’s soul by the human selling
it. At that point, the demon would have psycho-kinetic abilities, magical access, probability manipulation, and about every power you ever heard of. We could in turn gift those abilities to humans, to fulfill their wishes. And demons could use the soul power to hold dominion over other demons. But the problem was the soul would be used up. The oldest demons from Hell still have their reserve. But they can no longer gift any of it. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. Burned up.”
“Destroyed souls?” I asked.
“No, never destroyed. Your Einstein had that one correct. It just loses its potency. Think of it like a pie plate. Once you eat the pie, the plate still exists, waiting to be refilled, but no more pie. Speaking of, do you have anything to eat?”
“You just had two steaks and chips.”
“And?”
I knew Maz. His mind was now on food and he would not bend. Gluttony demons. I could spend twenty minutes arguing with him and then get him something to eat. Or I could just get up and do it now. So, I went down my hall for a sec and came back with several Hostess pies from a stasis box. I gave them to Maz, who eagerly ripped them open and slurped them down. He was in a sugar frenzy, hyped up as if he’d done a bump of coke.
“Wonderful. So, as I was saying, ever since we came to your world demons could no longer get souls through barter and deals. Oh, we tried, and many still do. Little secret between us, girls—demons don’t like to be as helpless as you. Lucky for us we are bigger and stronger and live longer. I hear the princes and some of the archdukes still have some major mojo juice saved up. But that’s about it. But what does it matter? Have you discovered something about your soulless bodies you have been finding?”
Before I could respond, Grimm placed a hand on my arm and shook his head. Obviously his trust in Maz only went so far. I shook his arm off me.
“Either we tell him and get more information, or we fumble around like fucking idiots. He can’t rat us out. Not for the foreseeable future anyway,” I said to Grimm, waiting on a challenge.
“Fine. Do what you must. But I do not like it, or him,” Grimm said. He sat back on his stool and sipped his drink.
I turned back to Maz. “The bodies Grimm found don’t have souls, as you pointed out to us. That means someone is removing them. You pointed out that more and more people are walking around nearly soulless. And if you can’t destroy a soul, my question is, where are they?”
“Way it was explained to me by my superiors is once Heaven closed its gates, no more souls from the Big G. So, naturally there would be a deficit,” Maz said. “Which is great for us. Keeps you little shits pliable and doing the grunt work.”
“Still doesn’t make sense to me,” I said. “If people are walking around soulless, then why are the ones Grimm found catatonic?” I asked.
“Let me rephrase,” Maz began. “The average person walking around is mostly soulless. There is the slightest fraction there. The empty pie plate. That sliver of soul is life itself with a few tasty crumbs. But not enough to really feel or do anything with. Like an infant’s. A blank slate. But the ones back at Grimm’s place? Those fuckers are just empty shells. No more pie plate. I don’t even know how they are alive.”
I let his words rattle around a bit in my brain. There was something there, a link I wasn’t seeing. People were born with the smallest amount of a soul, childlike. Infused with the spark of life. And that spark was made to grow.
“If God is gone, where does that bit of soul, the spark of life, come from?” I asked.
“The parents, I would assume. A fraction of theirs,” Grimm said. Maz nodded.
I thought about it some more. It jived with what Vali said. He saw it as a deficit of God-given souls. But what if Vali and Maz were only partly right?
I took a sip and lit a smoke. I thought aloud. “What if there were full souls out there. And the rest of the people had just enough to live, and then their souls would have a chance to grow. But in a world of demonic tyranny, oppression, fear, and death, how could that soul ever grow?”
“Sounds joyous,” Maz said.
“Shut up, demon,” Grimm muttered.
“Fuck you, Spooky. There are people with full, rich souls. They are identified early, part of my job as bishop. I make sure they are scooped up and put to work in various companies, tech development locations and whatnot. Who do you think makes all the cool toys your people love so much? All in the name of making your human lives that much more comfortable and pliable to our will. It really is quite devilish, don’t you think?”
“Both of you, just shut the fuck up,” I said, getting sick of it.
My head swam with questions, and they all led me back to the fact that our world was a dismal place. A place perfect for keeping the human spirit down, keeping us oppressed. A place where the heart could not grow. Always absent the light of living.
Fuck, that’s depressing.
“This doesn’t bring us any closer to figuring out who brought the hammer down on Midheim,” I said. “So, let’s put that on the back burner and focus on Midheim.”
“Yes, and no,” Grimm said. “I agree that we should continue gathering intelligence, and find out who ordered the attack on Midheim. However…”
“However,” I began, “the attack wasn’t random. They attacked after we arrived. Which means your investigation and the attack are not exclusive.”
“Exactly. It means someone has taken notice of our actions, and said someone wishes us eliminated,” Grimm said. “And to think, I first believed you to simply be a useful idiot.”
“Don’t go all sweet on me now, padre. Nothing’s to say I’m not still just a useful idiot. Even if I’m right, it doesn’t mean we’re gonna crack the mystery of the missing souls. But you’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
Grimm smiled. “It is invigorating. And not boring.”
“You are both retarded,” Maz said, shaking his head.
“Just follow the instructions I gave you,” I said.
Maz waved his hand. “Yes, yes. But I do want you to know that I will eventually betray you for the most personal profit.” He was serious. A demonic preemptive mea culpa.
“I know,” I said. “But you do know when that time comes, you better make sure I’m dead. Otherwise, I will kill you.”
“I look forward to it.” The demon smiled.
In his mind I had taken another step toward corruption. And in truth he wasn’t far off the mark. I was turning my life. Not onto a path of righteousness, mind you. No freaking way on that. But a gentle steer toward purpose. A small course correction that in time would set a new path and destination. I knew my hands would be dirty when I got there. But the dirt would be a badge of honor, for labor well done.
“Well,” I began, “Only one place to go around here to get our fingers on the pulse of the city and find out who ordered the attack.”
“Indeed,” Grimm agreed.
I flicked the comm box on the wall by my work table. “Mom, Dad, T…we are off to Dante’s to see Ricky.”
“Be safe,” said my mom.
“Watch yourself, son,” said my dad.
“Get laid. You are the cranky,” said T.
“Me or Grimm?” I asked T jokingly. Grimm shot me a look.
“Whomever.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Super Groovy Spooky Shuffle
We got to Dante’s late at night. Grimm and I took his Outrider, and we parked several blocks away and walked in. Dante’s had been considering valet parking for some time. But Jensen said he’d be damned if he was going to run it, and none of the demonic help was very good with machinery. Now that I thought about it, I reckoned it applied to Vali and Vidar, gods and angels as well. I never saw them handle anything more complex than a radio.
Technology was a man-made thing. Except for the basic elements, demons and the ilk were next to useless with complex machinery. They grasped the concepts, but the application was lost. Teach a fish to fly and all that. I guess that is why the demons bothered keeping manki
nd around at all. Someone had to run the power plants and fix broken things. The way I figured it, demons and angels could learn to drive a car and work a computer. But the inspiration to build one, that comes from the soul. Divine inspiration, as Vali said.
It made sense. If Grimm was right that all religions were true and that each pantheon was a derivative of God’s will, in one form or another, then when mankind stepped into the technological and industrial, we left the gods behind. They lost their purpose as well.
The area around Dante’s was pretty desolate, mostly decayed remnants of the old world. But it had its charm. As always, it served as a literal crossroads way station. Where all walks could have a drink and indulge in any vice, provided the coin or credit was on hand, or on claw, as it were.
Jensen sat outside on his usual perch, thumbing through a book. We were still a little ways off, but thanks to T’s implants, my nifty new eyes saw that he was reading the collected works of Richard Connell. As he thumbed the pages I could see he was rereading “The Most Dangerous Game.”
“Your friend, the cyborg doorman, is he the one who gave you that information about me?” Father Grimm asked.
“Yeah, but don’t hold it against him. He was just looking out for me. You have to admit, your whole sneaking in past him act was kind of a middle finger to his profession.”
“I do not like people taking account of or directly noting my actions.”
“Yeah, I kinda got that. But lighten up. He’s a buddy of mine.”
“Hmm,” Grimm grunted. “Most of your buddies are assholes.”
“’Sup Jensen,” I said as we approached. “What’s the good word?” I extended my hand and Jensen took it in a firm grip. I always had to remind myself not to take Jensen lightly.
“Good to see you, man. Been a while. You holding?” Jensen asked.
“Yeah, but I am running low for the now. Can I just spot ya a smoke?” Jensen nodded. I pulled two from a pack and lit them and gave him one.
“Thanks,” he said, taking a deep drag and exhaling.