9th Circle

by Carolyn McCray; Ben Hopkin

  “Knew I should have brought a coat,” Trey muttered to his partner.

  “It wouldn’t help.”

  Trey gave Darc a look that he really hoped said something along the lines of no shit, Sherlock. Just because Trey was a little slow on the uptake didn’t mean he was completely clueless.

  And now, all that remained was to wait for their imminent death. For as fast as it had been coming at them a few minutes ago, it sure was taking its sweet time now. Trey squirmed, trying to take his mind off his overfilled bladder.

  “Hey, Darc. Have I ever told you about that time with the blue-haired girl that—?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about the donkey and the—?”

  “Yes.”

  Yeah. That was it. He was out of stories. Trey was going to die here, in the dimly lit belly of an ancient underground bank, of extreme frostbite. Having to go to the bathroom so badly that his eyeballs were practically floating.

  Right about now, death by snake was sounding like a fantastic idea.

  *

  Darc understood that Trey was doing everything he could to keep his mind off of his rapidly approaching death. Darc even perceived that part of what his partner was trying to accomplish was to distract Darc himself from the specter of his failure.

  It was no use.

  Death approached with its feathery, cold fingers, reaching out for their heat. And once they were frozen, Darc was relatively confident, he would have no further twinges of conscience regarding this case.

  Peering into the swirling ice crystals that were forming from the moisture of Darc’s and Trey’s own breath, lines of light began to trace around them, dancing alongside the crystalline structures. Spaces formed in Darc’s mind, their outlines limned in colored light. The frozen droplets adhered to his eyelashes, the weight of the ice causing them to droop into Darc’s eyes.

  Trey shifted once more, opening then closing his mouth. He hopped from one foot to the other. This was behavior that Darc had seen before. Thinking back, he recognized the pattern. There had been the moment when Trey had broken Darc’s laptop during an investigation. Before telling him, Trey had resembled a goldfish.

  And the time when Trey had accidentally dropped crime scene photos into the toilet. He had almost looked like he was dancing as he bobbed back and forth from one foot to the other.

  Trey had something he wanted to tell him, and it was not good news. Something that more than likely had to do with some kind of confession due to their approaching death. Another shape clicked into place for Darc just as Trey managed to get words out.

  “Dude. I should tell—”

  “Don’t,” Darc said.

  But apparently, Trey wasn’t about to let it go that quickly. “No, really. It’s been a—”

  “No. You misunderstand. You don’t need to. We are safe.”

  “What?”

  Trey reached up to wipe his now-wet eyelashes where the ice had melted. Shining his flashlight along the floor and the walls, it was clear that the frost was moving away from them, not toward.

  Letting loose a huge whoop, Trey pumped his fist in the air. “That is what I call skin of the teeth, baby!” He rushed over to the vault door, pushing at it to open, but…

  “It’s locked. Again.”

  Moving past his partner, Darc once more placed his index finger on the door, this time on the lower-left-hand corner. The door sighed open.

  “You are going to have to show me how you do that sometime,” Trey muttered as he brushed past Darc on his way out. He moved ahead in the near darkness, headed toward the entrance of the bank. Darc did nothing to try to catch up to him. Unlike his partner, he understood exactly what would await them in the other buildings.

  Trey ran past the two frozen police statues, cringing away from them as he neared their now-permanent abode. He glanced into the general store, muttered something foul under his breath, then moved on to the saloon. After peering through the window, Trey’s shoulders slumped.

  “The same.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Dammit! What other tricks does this mother—this sick bastard—have up his sleeve?”

  The sound of Darc’s partner faded into the background as Darc’s gaze lanced into the space around them. The liquid nitrogen had been precisely placed and dispersed. The patterns of ice on the buildings around them appeared almost etched. Even as the patterns began to melt, symbols and lines leapt from the walls, locking into place almost instantly. Darc turned his head to his partner.

  “He has at least one more.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I mean,” Darc said, “is that he’s just invited us into his lair.”

  Trey stepped back, his face frozen almost as hard as the policemen behind him. “Are we really going to walk into a trap like that?”

  In response, Darc moved forward, leaving his partner behind him. He could hear Trey’s footsteps quicken as his partner struggled to keep up with him.

  “You aren’t thinking, dude. It’s not going to avenge Mala or save Janey if you get killed.”

  Darc stopped. He heard the stutter step Trey made to keep from running into his back. Darc could feel something inside him break, leaving him momentarily unable to continue forward.

  “I’m tired.”

  Trey’s face twisted in on itself. Confusion. Or heartburn. He spoke slowly. “Of course you are. You don’t get much sleep, and—”

  “No.” Darc cut him off. “I’m tired of it being my fault.”

  Trey waved his hands all around them. “This isn’t—”

  This time, it was Darc’s glare that stopped him. “I dragged her into this. Both of them into this.”

  “But—”

  “You into this.”

  “Hey!” Trey made a chopping motion with his hand. “I wasn’t dragged anywhere.”

  Darc sighed. “Tell me there’s nowhere else you’d rather be. No one else you’d rather be with?”

  Trey laughed, a short, bitter bark. “Duh. Dude, we’re in some kind of subterranean hell village with a psycho who’d like nothing better than to freeze our balls off. And yeah, I’d rather get laid—no surprise there.” He paused, looking deep into Darc’s face, searching for something there. “But tell me there’s nowhere else you’d rather be.”

  Darc felt his shoulders sag with the weight of the pressure bearing down on him. “There isn’t.” He watched as realization seemed to dawn on his partner’s face. “That’s the problem.” It was clear what was needed now. Darc could see it as clearly as if it were one of the inner rays of light. “Go back to her. Tell her in person.”

  He turned and walked away from his partner. This was the way. The only way that made logical sense. Trey’s voice drifted up to him.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  What Darc could not tell was whether his partner was simply swearing, or if the invective was directed specifically at him.

  He knew he deserved the latter.

  *

  Trey wasn’t sure how long he stood there. Did he want to go back to Maggie? Sure. Didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out. But did he want to be there for his partner?

  Well…no, actually. Not now, not in this place. Maybe this was another one of those courage moments. Putting one foot in front of the other. Problem was, he wasn’t completely sure which direction was the most courageous.

  Usually, it was pretty simple. Just figure out what he really, really, really didn’t want to do, and going ahead and doing it was courage. No problem. Except for the occasional screaming-like-a-little-girl thing.

  But this felt different. Whether or not they caught up to the killer and found Janey, the chances of their getting out alive were slim. And Trey’s following along to help probably wasn’t going to make much difference one way or the other. This was not one of the situations where Darc’s fly’s being up was going to do a whole lot of good. Trey was essentially additional baggage. Just one more person Darc had to worry about getting kille
d.

  And there was Maggie. Maybe he was overestimating his importance in her life, but he was pretty sure that his death would do more than just inconvenience her. And she still cared about Darc. Someone had to be there for her when the Dark Knight fell. And if not Trey, who? Captain Merle?

  So…there really wasn’t any reason to go running after Darc this time. He could just go home. Should go home. Was totally going to go home.

  Which was strange, because that was definitely not the direction his feet were taking him. He was walking into the lion’s den, and moving faster with each and every step. Yeah, logic told him to get out of here before he got in the way. But he really wasn’t the logic guy. That was Darc’s domain. Trey’s domain? Doing something completely stupid. And there was just no way he was going to let his partner walk into what was as close to literal hell as their killer could come up with.

  Come to think of it, he was pretty sure he had already made that decision as soon as Darc had started walking away from him. So all he had been doing here was making sure that he would have to run his butt off to catch up to his partner.

  Now all that was left was to make sure he didn’t break his neck trying to catch up. Trey shone his flashlight to either side of him, making sure he wasn’t about to step into something nasty. Couldn’t be too careful when the resident savant was somewhere up ahead in the blackness.

  As he ran forward into the eternal night of the Seattle Underground, Trey’s light first hit the back of his partner’s head. Okay, so at least he knew where Darc was. Luckily, Darc hadn’t been doing his normal impersonation of a speed walker. But as the flashlight lanced over to the side, it bounced back off of something metallic. A tank. A bunch of tanks. Getting closer, he could see that they were spent tanks with LIQUID NITROGEN written all over them. Along with warning signs. Yeah, no duh. He called up to Darc.

  “Well, that explains the freeze breeze. Our guy sure went to a lot of trouble setting out our welcome mat, didn’t he?”

  Darc paused in his forward motion but didn’t turn around. Trey jogged over the rest of the distance separating them and landed at Darc’s side. His place, for better or worse. He glanced over at his companion’s profile.

  “You know, sometimes you’re a real prick…”

  He started walking forward again, hearing Darc matching him step for step. There was an extended moment of silence between them. Then Darc finally spoke.

  “But?”

  “No buts. Just, sometimes you’re a real prick.”

  Maybe he was imagining it, but was that a flash of a smile on Darc’s lips? No. Couldn’t possibly be. Not in a million years.

  The two of them walked side by side into the depths of hell. Together.

  CHAPTER 17

  The journey toward their destination was interminable. Darc continued to look for signs that they were still going in the right direction, but found nothing except for scurrying rodents and broken-down remnants of an older part of the city.

  This part of the Underground was deeper than where they had been before, the distance up to the surface stretching at least two and up to three full stories. As Trey and he reached an intersection, a distant light shone down the passageway to their right. There were no symbols to guide them here, but the illumination worked as a beacon, guiding them to their hellish destination.

  “Aw. Look, dude. Our little psychopath left the porch light on for us. Nice of him,” Trey muttered, the cynical tone not completely masking the undercurrent of fear in his partner’s voice.

  They continued their approach, the glow intensifying but unsteady, a flicker rather than a consistent source. As they moved closer and closer, a noise began intruding on Darc’s senses. It started as an almost subliminal sound, a possible product of the imagination, setting Darc’s teeth on edge but not fully brought into the conscious mind. But as they neared the source of the light, the intrusion grew, turning into a low moan or howl.

  And then they could see what lay ahead of them. It was a cathedral, its sweeping arches rising up to the height of the foundations of the Underground. A combination of wood and stone, the church was far more ornate than any other building here below the surface, a remnant of probable efforts in the 1800s to clean up a morally suspect city.

  Stone gargoyles dribbled water down the face of the chapel, the tracks of its passage black in the dimly lit atmosphere. Its facade was pocked with windowless openings, from each of which blew an unholy blast of air. The low groan originated from inside the structure.

  Trey whistled. “Yep. Triple A–rated for sure. ‘We’ll leave the light on for ya.’ Might as well be the Motel 666.”

  As they approached, Trey stopped for a moment, peering more intently at the water draining down from the grotesqueries above. He stooped, scooping a finger through one of the dark puddles. It came back red.

  “Yeah. That’s not water.” Trey peered up to the grinning creatures above, and a red drop landed on his forehead. “Ugh. Seriously?” He wiped his hand over his face.

  Above the arched entrance, dark symbols bled their own drops, the trails meeting and flowing over and around the etchings on the stone. The letters removed themselves from the surface of the rock, dancing into Darc’s head, with traces of glowing light carving themselves into new patterns within his mind. The symbols knocked into one another, bleeding and merging together to form new ciphers. The newly formed glyphs flowed into place with ease, not fighting him at all.

  “So,” Trey asked, “did he put the welcome mat out for us?”

  The answer was clearly yes, but Darc had no time to inform his partner of this fact. The wind inside peaked, rattling the heavy wooden doors. And then, with no warning, the doors burst open, a gust of foul air hitting them both, along with a spattering of blood. Trey gagged and spat.

  “Dude. Last chance for a beer and to bowl a few frames.” He looked over at Darc. “No? Okay, then let’s get this over with.”

  They walked through the wide-swinging doors side by side, straight into the depths of the worst nightmare imaginable.

  *

  She heard the doors bang open, and she knew it was the tall man and his friend. Even though she had been sure he was coming for her, knowing he was here felt really good. Really, really good.

  He was going to fix everything. He was going to make it all okay. He might even know how to get Popeye back from the bad man.

  But she had to be careful. Super-duper careful. She couldn’t even look over to see the tall man’s shiny head. She wanted to. So much. But if she did, the awful thing would happen.

  And that awful thing was so awful. It could never happen. Never, never, never. It was up to her. Daddy always said that she was brave. When she went to the dentist. When she was supposed to put her face under the water at swim lessons. When the monster would start coming out from behind the bookshelf in her old room.

  She would start to cry, and Daddy would say, “It’s okay, sweetie. You are so brave. You are the bravest little girl I have ever seen.” And then she would stop crying and she would know she could do whatever scary thing she had to do.

  This was a lot harder than the dentist or the pool or even the monster. There were so many bad things here. Scary things. Way worse than the monster from behind the bookshelf. Things that made her want to squeeze her eyes shut and never open them ever again.

  But she was brave. She didn’t have her crayons or markers here, but even when she would just think of the tall man’s shiny badge, the drumming sound in her ears would slow down. So would the beeping clock next to her head. That was a good thing.

  And now the tall man was here. He would save her. He would save everybody.

  *

  Trey was freaking out, big time.

  Everywhere he looked, he saw a new horror. A new assault on the senses.

  Before seeing all of this, Trey wouldn’t have called what the killer had done up to this point “understated.” But after only a few seconds of being inside this freaky church, t
hat was pretty much where he was landing.

  The deaths to date had been so many that Trey had stopped counting a long time ago. And brutal. So very, very brutal. But now the killer had landed firmly and undeniably in the realm of spitting in God’s eye. Trey couldn’t even take it all in.

  “I gotta say it. I’m going to say it. God’ll forgive me for this one. What. The. Fuck.”

  The once-pretty font at the entrance to the narthex was filled to overflowing with blood. The carved pictures of the saints around its surface had been defaced. Snakes curled around Christ’s hands, feet, and neck as he stood in what Trey used to call the holy pose, one hand over his heart, the other pointing toward what had once been the heavens but were now flights of demons overhead. The vipers had sunk their fangs into his flesh, the overflow of blood from the font looking like the figure of the Savior was weeping red drops.

  The same bright and hot fire from the cemetery flared from cauldrons placed all the way through the cathedral, lighting the sick scenes around them with light that looked like it came straight out of hell. The glow washed over everything, giving the whole church a surreal feel like those paintings Trey vaguely remembered from college by that Spaniard dude with the awesome mustache and the crazy eyes. Surreal and totally psycho-sicko sick, sick, sick.

  Torture devices that Trey hadn’t even known existed scattered themselves within the once-sacred chapel. An iron maiden sat, hinged wide to display the corpse sliced to ribbons within its jaws. A rack was placed in the central aisle, the body stretched way past the limits that Mother Nature intended.

  In every nook and cranny, statues of the saints had been graffitied. Naked corpses of women draped themselves across the shoulders of Saint Matthew, making it look like the guy who wrote of one of the four Gospels was getting busy with wine-soaked floozies.