by Edward Lee
“I’m sorry,” Cassie said sadly. “I don’t have any money and even if I did, I couldn’t let you cut off your foot.”
A tear glistened in the demon-girl’s good eye. She began to stick the syringe needle into her nostril, but then Cassie said: “Hot. Real hot,” and the girl dropped the syringe. It turned red-hot on the pavement, then poofed into flame.
“Why did you do that!” the girl sobbed. “That was my last slam! I sold my finger for that!”
Cassie stared down at her. You don’t need it anymore. You’re cured...
The demon-girl shivered as if suddenly chilled. Her good eye and her socket opened wide. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she rejoiced, jumped up, and ran away with her hands upraised.
Cassie, over time, had honed her Etheric Powers, but she knew this was just a parlor trick, and what did it matter anyway? She knew a Re-Tox Unit would pick the girl up shortly and re-addict her to the drug. But at least she’ll be free for a little while. At least she’ll get to know what it’s like to be free...
Cassie wasn’t free, though, was she? The notion put her at odds. Most would say she’d been given great gifts but she’d never wanted that in the first place. She just wanted to live her little life and mind her own business, and that only intensified the crux. Cassie didn’t have to use her Etheric Powers, she didn’t have to come into the Mephistopolis. She very well could live her life and mind her own business. But if she did that ...
I’d never see Lissa again, she realized.
Yes, a curse, fueled by her own guilt. And though this was just a dream-channel, she had Angelese back in her room telling her that she knew where another Deadpass was, an opportunity ro re-enter Hell in the flesh and search for Lissa. But everybody wants something, came the regret. Nothing’s free. There’s always a catch ...
On the street, she felt something like static, then everything fell silent and still. Bats and Ghor-Birds lifted off from leaning building ledges and the malformed trees in the park. By now she knew what was coming—she’d learned to sense it—and before she could even take cover—
Smzuswss=-ONKI
In the center of the street, the green blob of light wavered, then grew, then delineated into a moving oval shape. The street shimmered in eerie green light. A Nectoport, Cassie recognized at once. Lucifer’s intra-district transport system powered by diabolical energy and Warlock spells. Cassie stood unflinching before the opening oval, this arcane doorway, expecting a Mutilation Squad to charge out, or some manner of Monster. She wasn’t afraid, though. She was ready because here her thoughts were weapons more savage than any Usher’s claws or Constabulary’s scytheblade. Come and get it, you ugly assholes, she thought, but it never happened.
A voice. It was Angelese : “No Mutilation Squad this time, Cassie. No raging demons. It’s just me. We stole Lucifer’s Nectoport technology a while ago. It’s great, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I ... guess.”
“We’ve also learned how to manipulate convergences in Spectral-Wave Emissions—same way magnetic fields can be manipulated in the Living World. We can fly these things around like planes, and keep the Egress open all the time.”
It was too much information too soon. Cassie didn’t know what was going on, much less why Angelese was here in her dream-channel. She’d always thought that a Nectoport was just an occult transportation device that brought two distant points together in a few seconds, like the transporter on Star Trek. But now it was something much more versatile, a magic carpet, a magic doorway.
She stood warily, until Angelese, her white gown and hair tinted green by the light, leaned out of the Port’s opening. She held out her hand. “Come on, let me take you someplace. Your REM sleep’s almost over and you’ll wake up soon, so come on!”
Cassie didn’t move. She’d learned not to trust any entity in this place. “You could be a Blood Mirage. You could be a Hex-Clone ...”
“It’s good that you don’t trust me here,” Angelese smiled. “But it’s me, angels can’t lie.”
“Demons can.”
“Sure, but you’re just dream-channeling, so even if I am a Clone, you can’t really be hurt. Come on, I want to show you something. You’ve done a lot for me so I want to do something for you.”
Cassie still didn’t know what to think. But it was just a dream-channel. And she was a very adventurous girl by nature.
“All right ...”
She got into the Nectoport with Angelese and—Sssssssssssssssss-ONK!
—they were off.
Angelese kept the Egress open as they soared through the smoke-streaked sky. In no time they were miles up but when Cassie peered down, she gasped. The glowing city below extended seemingly without physical limit. It was a terrifying vision on its own but the motive was even more unnerving: that Lucifer had built this city—a city bigger than every city on earth put together—just to serve as an abode for every conceivable corruption, a city that existed solely to revile God.
Cassie’s bright yellow-and-red hair danced in the wind. She could not avert her eyes from the intricate sprawl below. “It looks ... endless.”
“It pretty much is, Cassie. Satan’s been very busy for a long time.”
Even this high up, the soaring air stank. She focused now, noticing something as the rim of the Nectoport rose higher. The jammed-together districts of the Mephistopolis formed patchwork-like designs—an endless urban mural that glowed. The districts formed pentagram-shapes, triangles, demonic faces, and inverted crosses. It was diabolical art.
Angelese could tell that Cassie was noticing this, so she took the Nectoport even higher.
The shapes and diagrams below were all integrated, collectively forming a much larger mural. Cassie couldn’t see it all, even at this altitude, but she could see enough. Lucifer is his own patron of the arts ... The pattern criss-crossed into a configuration that seemed to show an outspread arm below an immense wing. An angel’s wing, Cassie realized. But she was grateful that she couldn’t see the rest. She never wanted to see the face ...
They soared further, and Cassie noticed a strange black edifice. “Is that a—”
“A pyramid? Not exactly.”
“It looks like black glass, but, this far away? It must be huge.”
“It’s the Bastille of Otherwise Souls,” Angelese explained. “It’s the vessel that holds the soul of every person who committed suicide, souls that otherwise would’ve gone to Heaven. ”
Cassie gulped. “Is ... my sister’s soul trapped there?”
“I’m not allowed to say.”
Cassie smirked. Next she noticed one district that seemed uniform in color, a brick-red. “What’s that?”
“The Panzuzu District,” Angelese told her. “Every single building there is painted with blood. It just happens to be the place I’m taking you to. I want you to see it with your own eyes.
The port began to lower again, like a fighter plane taking a dive. Cassie’s belly did flip-flips. This sure beats Busch Gardens...
“Look...”
Cassie could see it, the thing that Angelese had previously described as something like a colossal football stadium.
“The Atrocidome.”
Jeez, that thing must cover an entire square mile. She squinted then. An immense circular black blot. She could see the outline of the place, she could even see the grand-stands, like those that would surround a sports field. But ... where was the field?
“We can’t see every detail,” Angelese said, “we’re too far away, and I don’t want to get close enough to be spotted by observers. The black circle is the Killing Plate. It’s hovering over the field as we speak, that’s why you can’t see the field itself. Archlocks are keeping it levitated until they can pack as many people in as they can.”
“And when they do—”
“The Archlocks release the Levitation Spell, and the plate falls. It crushes everybody on the field at the same instant. All that Deathforce surges at once, and Satan’s Biowizar
ds use more Necromancy to contain and manipulate the energy—through those Energy Converters—” She pointed toward the farthest edge of the dome, where black skeletal towers at least a mile high pitched in the wind. “It’s all that energy that allows them to cause the Spatial Merge.”
Cassie couldn’t imagine it. Who could even think of it? Who could devise such a thing, even in a world where wizardry functioned as science?
“Originally Lucifer built the ’dome to serve as an entertainment field for the demonic elite. His version of gladiators. But eventually his Wizards found a better use for it.” Angelese made the Nectoport veer off sharply. It whizzed across the sky, across the shape of the black sickle moon.
“Where are we going now?” Cassie asked, gripping the rim for all she was worth.
“The Satan Park Zoo,” Angelese said.
Zoo? Great. A zoo in Hell. “Why are we going there?”
Angelese didn’t answer. Instead, she looked out at the evil spectacle that was the city. Her snow-white hair danced around her head, the wind pressing the fabric of her gown against her breasts. Through the thin material Cassie could see the webwork scars. At one point, the angel’s pendant—the Obscurity Stone—Mew back behind her neck, and while it was no longer in contact with her skin, her aura raged. The emanation of intense, lime-green light projected from the Nectoport’s dimensionless rim. “Damn it!” she exclaimed and pulled the stone back to her bosom. “That was real smart.”
“What’s wrong? Your aura’s beautiful.”
“Here it’s deadly. If Spotters see it, they’ll report it to the Agency of the Constabulary.”
“But we don’t have anything to worry about,” Cassie reminded. “Like you said back on the street. We’re just dream-channeling. We can’t be hurt or captured because our physical bodies aren’t really here.”
“That’s right, but if someone saw us, that would tip the Constabulary off. Lucifer would know that someone’s getting ready to fuck with him.”
Cassie’s jaw dropped. “Angelese! You’re an angel! You can’t talk like that.”
The angel grinned. “That’s just a misconception. Angels can talk any fuckin’ way they want.”
Cassie was shocked.
Then: “Damn it!” Angelese yelled.
Before Cassie could ask what was wrong, she saw it. Four Griffins, like a squad of attack planes, could be seen soaring up toward them through wisps of ill-colored clouds. Cassie had never seen Griffins so large—with twenty-foot wing-spans. Their wings moved too fast to be seen.
“Do something!” Angelese shouted.
Cassie was dumbfounded but then she thought, Oh! That’s right, I’m an Etheress ... Below, the flock disbanded into different directions; several disappeared into clouds. They flew so quickly it was hard for her to focus. Come on, come on, she sputtered to herself. Then she saw one, much closer, and thought: Decapitate ...
The Griffin didn’t even have time to shriek. Its beaked, scale-plated head flew off mid-flight at a perfect line along its neck. Cassie didn’t even see any blood. When another of the beasts turned out of a cloud and approached the mouth of the Nectoport, Cassie thought, No feathers, and suddenly the thing was plummeting helplessly. Its cover of scaled feathers fell off its twisted body, dispersing in a confetti-like cloud. The Griffin was gone.
Angelese was taking the Nectoport lower. “Where are the other ones?” she asked with some concern. Then she was screaming. Two Great-Dane-sized heads shot over the Port’s rim. One beak swiped at Angelese’s face, missed, but got a length of her white hair. It was trying to pull her out.
The other Griffin was climbing into the Nectoport.
“Help!” the angel shrieked.
“No beak,” Cassie said to the creature that was attacking her friend. The beak fell off, leaving a black-pink tongue roving within an agape hole. It raised a talon, but then Cassie said, “No claws.” They fell off. Suddenly the thing was foundering on the rim; without claws it couldn’t maintain its grasp. It fell off.
“Jesus!” Angelese exclaimed in relief.
The last Griffin made a sound like a jammed gearbox when Cassie thought, Inside-out. Suddenly its body inverted, organs hanging off its exterior, its small brain smeared like pudding around the prolapsed skull. Everything that was inside now hung outside. It shuddered uselessly.
“Out,” Cassie said, and the Ethereal force behind the word jettisoned the thing out of the Port’s mouth.
“That’s some skill you have.” Even Angelese was impressed, breathing deep in the aftermath.
“It doesn’t work on everything here,” Cassie said. She watched the heap-like Griffin turn end over end as it fell fast. “Lower species, mainly. The more evolved the demon, the less effect I have. Can’t touch a higher-echelon Warlock or Necromancer.” She grinned. “But it can be fun.”
“You’re evolving so well, it’s amazing.” Angelese narrowed her pretty beige eyes. “I’ll bet you could give an entire Mutilation Squad a run for their money, and I’ll bet you could give a Grand Duke a serious headache.”
“I try.” Cassie peered further ahead and down. They were much lower now, skimming the tops of corroded buildings, shooting through smoke. “Isn’t it dangerous being this low?”
“A little. The smoke will give us cover.” The angel pointed. “Look. The Mephisto Building. See it?”
“How could I miss that?” Cassie said. Through occasional breaks in the smoke, Cassie spotted the tallest building ever constructed. 666 floors high, she thought in awe. Monolithic, the building spired high, looking out on the city with hundreds of thousands of gun-slit windows. Gargoyles could be seen prowling the stone ledges of each level; Caco-Bats nested in the iron trestle that crossed to form the structure’s fastigiated antenna-mast. Even from this distance, it made Cassie dizzy just to look at. “That’s where Lucifer lives,” she muttered.
“It’s the heart of Hell. Rumor is he hasn’t left the building in a thousand years.”
“Have you ever seen him?”
“Once. A long time ago.”
“What’s he look like?”
“He looks just like ...” Something severed the angel’s answer, as her Umbra Specter began to rear. “Just ... bright light,” she said instead.
At the base of the impossible edifice, Cassie could see the strange pinkish heaps, like intestines. They looked like organic masses of something that rose several floors up. They glistened, throbbing. These were the Flesh Warrens; the only way into the Mephisto Building was through these organic channels. It was the ultimate security system. The Flesh Warrens possessed their own immune-system.
“We have to go there, Cassie,” Angelese began.
“What? You’re crazy! It’s impenetrable. The Flesh Warrens eat anything that enters.”
“We’ll find a way. Not now, later. There’s something going on there. Our spies have told us that Lucifer has left the top floor.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know. We gotta find out what he’s doing up there. Here, take these and look.”
Angelese handed Cassie a pair of what she thought were binoculars, and they were ... in a sense. Cassie yelped. The odd black object hummed faintly in her hands, brimming with some occult energy. Jutting from the two forward lenses were a pair of huge, blood-shot eyes. Binoculars, my ass! Cassie thought.
“You can see miles with those things. It’s an Ophitte Viewer, the eyes of a Gargoyle charged by a Blood Spell. Gargoyles are Satan’s sentinels; that’s why he’s got them crawling all over the Mephisto Building, to watch for possible trespassers. They have very good vision.”
The fascinating meld of technology and the occult didn’t particularly impress Cassie. Every so often, the binoculars blinked. She hesitantly brought them to her own eyes and looked out, now surveying the very top of the Mephisto Building. She’s right, something’s going on up there ... She could see demons working, like a construction crew. They seemed to be building something around the ramparts of the roof, c
ranes droning to set in place rows of what appeared to be shiny greenish pillars.
“What are those pillars?”
“Plinths made of jasper. Any gem that exists in the Four Gates of Heaven has an opposite power here. In case you didn’t know—and haven’t read The Revelation of John the Divine, the outer wall of Heaven is made of jasper. In Hell, symbols have power the same way that an electric generator has power in the Living World. The symbol of something holy in Heaven—such as jasper—can be used sacrilegiously in Hell. The holy becomes unholy. Get it?”
“No,” Cassie said, still looking at the macabre rooftop construction.
“Lucifer’s got a bunch of plans brewing. The Merges, you, the Transposition that took place at that library in Maryland the other night. And now this, the jasper dolmens. They can be very dangerous Power Relics.”
Cassie didn’t understand and didn’t think she wanted to. She put down the hideous, blinking binoculars. “I don’t care if he’s got a Tupperware Party going on up there—we’re not going to the Mephisto Building.”
“No, not now. But later ...”
“Have fun,” Cassie huffed. “I’m not up for it.”
“Calm down. The only place we’re going right now is the zoo.” Angelese’s white hair churned around her head almost like an aura itself. “But there aren’t any giraffes and koala bears in this zoo.”
More confusion whipped around Cassie, with the wind blowing in. The Port slowed, cruising lower. Hell was full of abominable odors, but the odors here took the cake. Rot, offal, spoiling meat, and sweat on bodies that hadn’t been washed in centuries. A winding lane was lined with cages; Cassie saw upscale Demons, humans, and other elite Mephistopolites meandering from cage to cage. The Nectoport raced along over the lane too quickly for Cassie to make out details of the creatures in the cages, and she supposed she was grateful for that. At one cage, several well-dressed Broodren cawed as they poked sharp sticks through the bars. Each jab was responded to by a thunderous roar.