Devil's Hand

by M. E. Patterson

  The angels, too scared to move, watched the mortal mount the Ducati, gun it to life and roll it off into the howling night, one hand on the handlebars and one holding down the Stetson against the furious storm.

  23

  THE LUXOR HOTEL, AT THE southern end of The Strip next to the gaudy towers of the Excalibur, rose out of the windy, snow-filled gloom ahead as Trent motored north. He did not want to return to The Strip, but his task had become clear: he would destroy Zamagiel, once and for all. Not for the demons, or for Ramón, or even for himself. For Celia. Too many had already died today, some in Trent’s name, and some in hers. He would put a stop to it all, end the carnage, and clear the storm from the face of Sin City. If he had to give up his own life to do it, so be it. If he had become the Bringer of Doom, then he would bring it to Zamagiel.

  Driving the motorcycle through the thick blanket of snow on the roads proved to be difficult, but Trent took it slowly. It gave him time to consider the days events, his new knowledge of self, and the path he had chosen. He thought about what Charlie had said to him and wondered just who the old Russian actually was; he knew a lot more than Trent would ever have expected. He thought about the detail given him by the demons, and by the old Mexican who was really a monster, and even the strange statements from the angels about a ‘prophecy’ and an ‘ice queen’ and he worried, for just a moment, if maybe he was inadequate for his mission, if this were a suicide run that would amount to nothing at all. But as the bike crunched along slowly through the snow, he brought a hand down to caress the intricate features of the silver dagger at his belt, and he felt confidence renewed. He could do this.

  Ahead, the neon of The Strip grew brighter and then suddenly seemed very bright in contrast to the darker urban streets down which he passed. It was then that Trent realized that the city was blacking out. Through the low visibility of the storm, he could see lights winking out in the distance in every direction. Other lights came back on just as suddenly, as the waves of dead power rolled past. Las Vegas was dying, moaning under the weight of the storm, and its neon–its lifeblood–was quickly losing its potency. It was a sight that Trent could scarcely imagine, even as he watched it happen. He had to move fast. There was little time left for Sin City.

  He hit the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Russell Road, with Mandalay Bay’s trees hanging limp with ice just a few hundred yards north, and brought the bike to a sudden halt. Glowing amidst the dark storm he could see a series of spotlight beams traveling up and down The Strip sidewalks. He stepped off the bike and peered into the swirling snow and saw men carrying the lamps. Searching. Men in gray suits.

  “Fuck,” he swore quietly, though the storm’s roar muffled any sound he made. “Fucking angels, again.”

  From the lights, he counted seven or eight searchers, and knew in an instant that he would not survive a frontal assault. And if there were this many all the way down by Mandalay, he figured there’d be plenty more around the base of the black pyramid. He had to find another way inside.

  He stood, watching the distant search beams, and stretched his aching neck from side to side. He exhaled and tried to calm his thoughts. The last thing he wanted was to head back into the tunnels. But now, they seemed the only choice. He shook his head, left the bike parked in the snow, and headed off the road and into the ditch.

  It took him a few minutes in the chaotic, black snowstorm, but he finally managed to locate one of the flood channels that invariably led down into the tunnels. He padded carefully down through the channel, trying not to slip on the thick ice that had formed on the concrete. Up ahead, a light pierced the blizzard veil at the twelve-foot diameter entrance to a flood control tunnel, and Trent panicked for a moment. Was he about to be discovered? They had actually sent angels to guard the tunnel entrances?

  But then he looked again. Not a searchlight, but a lantern, battery-powered with a dim yellow glow. Not moving, not searching. This was the light of a tunnel-dweller.

  Still, he found himself wary. “Hey!” he called out, hoping the storm would keep his voice from traveling any further than the drainage channel. “Who’s there?”

  “You Metro?” came a voice, barely audible over the din of the storm.

  “No, just moving through,” Trent yelled back, as he advanced on the light and the voice.

  “We ain’t leavin’. Nowhere else to go up there.”

  “I said I’m not a cop.” Trent approached the light source and found it to be a small Coleman camp lantern sitting just inside the tunnel entrance atop an old wooden picnic table. Nearby, a crude camp had been setup, complete with a blue tarp tent and shelves made from stacked shipping pallets. Two men sat at the picnic table, one black, one white, both haggard looking and dressed in rags. Trent could see that they were shivering.

  “Whatchu want?” said the black man, menacingly. He had a beer in one hand. The white man was smoking a joint.

  Trent reached to his belt and gripped the dagger handle, ready for anything. “Just need directions.”

  “You comin’ in here?”

  “That was the plan.”

  “Why?”

  “Need to get to the Luxor.”

  The white man took the join from his lips and pointed up to the street above. “Up there. Just go north a couple blocks. You’re almost there.”

  “I need to use the tunnels.” Trent walked closer, until he could see the men’s faces. He smiled and held out the dagger to show them he was armed, but not prepared to use it. Then he slid the blade into his belt.

  “No,” said the white man, shaking his head. “Ain’t smart. It’s not far, but this part of the tunnels got lots of twists and turns. In this weather it’s gonna be black as hell in there. You’ll get lost and die of cold.”

  The black man nodded, grinning. His teeth shone in the lantern light. “Its too dangerous right now.”

  Trent looked around at the screaming blizzard. “It’s better out here?”

  “You got a point,” said the black man. He lifted the beer can to his lips and, with shaking hands, slurped some of its contents.

  “I just need to get up there. You guys know the way?”

  The two men looked at each other for a moment. “You sure you ain’t Metro?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “We send a cop up in there, and Mary goin’ be pissed at us,” replied the black man.

  “I’m not a cop, I promise. Cops carry guns, not knives, right?”

  The white man looked at his companion and nodded, then turned back to Trent. “Take your second right, then your third left. You’ll hit The Church. You best treat them with some respect. They’re good people. Better than most.”

  “The Church?”

  “Yeah, Virgin Mary lives down here. Got her a little church in one of the overflow chambers. Even got a congregation from time to time. You find her, she’ll show you the way to the Luxor. Tunnel comes up right in the basement.”

  Trent smiled and tipped his hat. “Thanks.”

  “How you gonna see in there, man? Pitch-black most of the way, ya know.”

  “Yeah,” said Trent, frowning. “You guys wouldn’t have a light I can borrow, would you?”

  Both men glanced at the lantern on the picnic table. The black man shook his head. “Uh uh. No way. This is ours. You goin’ up in there and get killed, we never get our light back. You gotta find your own.”

  Trent shrugged. “Fine.” He walked past their small camp and headed into the frozen black. He stopped a few feet in. From the dim light of their lantern, he could make out a couple lines of text spray-painted on top of several layers of graffiti:

  A dungeon horrible, on all sides round

  As one great Furnace flam’d, yet from those flames

  No light, but rather darkness visible

  Serv’d only to discover sights of woe,

  Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace

  And rest can never dwell, hope never comes

  He stared at th
e lines for a minute, taking in the oddity of such educated verse spray-painted inside a flood control tunnel. It was beautiful. Beside it glowed a painting of a woman’s face wreathed in flame, ornately done, detailed and perfect in its execution. Trent shook his head, astonished by the artistry. He turned to look back at the two men.

  “Hey, did one of you guys paint–”

  He saw a dark movement amidst the shadows under the picnic table, and a strange sensation crawled up his spine. He recognized that telltale motion, that impossible repositioning through open space. The shadow creature. What had the demons called it? A Render? Why wasn’t it dead?

  “Shit!” he yelled, and charged towards the men, knife suddenly, reflexively drawn.

  The two men misunderstood his intent and both jumped up from the picnic table and rushed to grab crude weapons from a nearby stack of equipment. The white guy came up with a rusty steak knife; the black guy an old golf club with no head and they began to advance on Trent.

  “Stay back, man!” the white guy shouted, his voice trembling.

  But Trent did not slow. He knew that the Render would end their lives in passing, if he didn’t get to it first. Beyond the light of the lantern, he saw now the telltale black glow, the dripping of smoke that was darker even, than the darkest patches of shadow cast by the storm clouds raging overhead, eclipsing the city from the night sky and the glow of the moon.

  He rushed past the men, who watched him sprint by, perplexed, still holding up their ersatz weaponry. In the black of night, the Render moved even quicker than it had before, and Trent could barely see it as it came on. But now he knew something about himself, something different. He understood.

  As the black, geometric points of its legs rose up in front of him, Trent blinked, and saw the world behind the world. He watched the multitude of possibilities as they danced across the dead bleakness of that place, all of them bad luck for the Render, and he chose one and brought doom to bear.

  The white bum, panicked, stumbled backwards and bumped against the picnic table. The battery-powered lantern tumbled off and hit the ground. Its light fell across an old, cracked mirror leaning against some of the bums’ stuff. The reflected beams hit the Render, sending it screeching past Trent, cutting legs waving in pain. It dropped out of the light and slid past Trent and into the tunnel darkness.

  Trent spun on his boot heels and positioned himself at the tunnel opening, feet apart, ready to move at any second, with the dagger in his hand. He and the two bums had moved back farther from the tunnel, back into the chaos of the storm above the drainage ditch, where none of them could see or hear the others for the blizzard-force snow tearing at their faces. The snarling winds were the only sound, at least until broken by the voice of the black bum.

  “What the fuck was that, man?” he shouted, his voice muffled and nearly inaudible.

  Instantly, the Render reappeared, hurtling out of the blackness like a cannon shot. It threw itself at the bum who had just spoke, and Trent suddenly understood. It was blind, in a way; it could only see those things that reflected light and cast shadows. Here, in the chaos, in the black of night and storm, all were equals, all were creatures of shadow. But the Render could still hear.

  Trent dove across the tunnel to put himself between the Render and the bum. With a quick swipe, he brought the dagger across the creature’s abdomen. A thin beam of gray light burst across the flesh, glowed for a split-second, and then faded. The spider dropped to the floor and slid away from them, back into the darkness.

  Trent reached out, found the bum’s shirt in the dark, and pulled him close, until he could see the man in the light. He put a finger to his lips, indicating silence. Then he grabbed the other bum and did the same. They both nodded, and crouched perfectly still, like frozen statues in the ice-cold drainage channel.

  Holding the dagger out in front of him, Trent moved quietly across the tunnel to the other side, then started back toward the opening, toward the camp with its fallen lantern, still casting dim light across the floor.

  As soon as he had reached a semi-lit area, he said, quietly, “Okay, let’s play.”

  On cue, the Render burst from a nearby shadow, slid up the tunnel wall, then leaped at Trent. Another blink, another change of the creature’s luck, and it came down awkwardly in the wrong place, legs inadvertently slipping into the pool of lantern light. It screeched. Trent dove onto it.

  His whole body felt numb as he landed atop the Render. The spider writhed and thrashed, but Trent was able to dig his fingers into the black with one hand. With the other, he brought the dagger down fast. The point stabbed into the shadow-flesh, sending up a momentary burst of light and even louder shrieks from the thing. It pulled forward then, taking Trent with it, a strange, disconcerting ride as it moved inexpertly through the dark space toward the paralyzed bums.

  Fear overtook one of the men and he turned to run, his sneakers clomping loud against the concrete floor. Trent could feel the Render’s sudden awareness. It changed direction immediately and headed for the escaping bum.

  “No– you– don’t–!” yelled Trent, straining to drag the blade back through the Render’s mass. It felt like trying to cut through rubber.

  The Render came within a few steps of the fleeing man, then jumped into the air. Trent knew that it was trying to shake him off by slipping into the bum’s shadow. He pulled the knife free and let go of its flesh with his hand. The creature lurched wildly, throwing Trent free. He blinked.

  In the black, he saw many possibilities, but only one that mattered. He focused on that one, focused with all of his willpower. He opened his eyes.

  The creature sucked down into the man’s shadow as Trent fell to the floor, arm outstretched, dagger gleaming in the dull light. He gritted his teeth and stabbed, point-down, toward the floor. The blade punctured two shadows then, the bum’s and the Render itself. The bum lost his footing immediately, as though he had hit the end of an invisible leash.

  The Render, half-in and half-out of the man’s shadow, twisted violently, but could not seem to pull itself free. The angel’s dagger had pinned it halfway between this world and the black. Trent’s arm trembled as he struggled to hold the dagger tight.

  “Get the lantern!” he yelled.

  The white man looked down at him, confused and terrified.

  “The light!” he screamed. “Get the fucking light!”

  The man blinked twice, then ran back to the table and scooped up the lantern. He brought it over and held it above the conflagration.

  The black man, face down on the tunnel floor, screamed in pain. “Get it out!” he shrieked. “Goddammit, get it out of me!”

  Trent held out his free hand, received the lantern, and then shoved it, bulb first, into the place where the two shadows thrashed. He could feel a certain resistance, but then the lantern burst through into the dark and vanished. The tunnel was cast into pitch-black once more.

  His arm was buried in the thing, numb yet buzzing with pain. He could still just barely feel the lantern’s handle in his grip, somewhere in the place beyond.

  The creature’s shrieking came loud then, easily eclipsing the sounds of wind and storm. The shrieks, as before, had human undertones, the sounds of men and women and children crying out in unison, screaming, moaning, yelling; and somewhere in there, Trent knew for certain that he could hear Susan.

  Then the shrieks stopped. The light reappeared, dim at first but then it came back suddenly, making the three of them blink. Trent lay there, outstretched on the floor, his fingers still gripping the lantern, white-knuckled. He took a deep breath and laid his head down on the concrete and listened to the blizzard howl.

  “Can– can we talk now?” whispered the white bum. The black man lay on the floor nearby, whimpering.

  Trent rolled over onto his back and absently read the lines of verse again, though upside-down now. “Yeah,” he said, after a moment. “It’s gone.”

  “What the hell was it?”

  Trent t
hought for a moment, and then said, “Nothing.”

  “Well it sure ain’t look like nothin’.” The white bum helped his friend up. “Look, man, if you need the light you can keep it–”

  Trent thought about it for a moment. “Nah,” he said, finally. He tossed the lantern back to the bum. “It’s yours.” He turned and started walking back into the tunnel.

  “But what if there’s more of those things in there?”

  “It’s your light,” said Trent, without turning around. “You need it more than me.” And then he passed into the darkness of the tunnel.

  24

  THE STORM SCREAMED FURIOUSLY AS Celia moved through the unyielding night. A trail of devastation and horror lay in her wake. Her mind refused to consider what she had done–The Book made sure of that from its place within her jacket. She could feel it playing her mind like a puppet, pulling her strings and guiding her through the frozen wastes that had, only a day before, been the City of Las Vegas–now a barren realm, covered in ice and snow, its inhabitants scrambling for safety, food, and clean water.

  In the devastation, The Book sensed a power vacuum and knew that its young thrall would now do her part. She felt it moving through her brain like a thief, searching for the big score. She felt all of The Book’s foul desires, but found herself unable to resist its voice.

  She moved toward the black pyramid on the horizon, with its brilliant beam of light still unbroken above it, a sharp contrast to the dying light of all the other buildings around. She felt her steps guided by The Book’s invisible hand. The Book wanted revenge against Zamagiel, and Celia was only too willing to obey.

  So great was the fury instilled in her psyche that all things seemed to make haste to avoid her. The snow ahead drifted quickly away from her feet, leaving clean, dry pavement beneath her ice-encrusted tennis shoes. The winds whipped around and past her, but no gusts struck her in the face or chest, giving her free passage through the crippling blizzard. Even light was unsure in her passing; street lamps winked out as she moved beneath them. Darkness marked her journey through the streets of Las Vegas, accompanied by howling winds and the unyielding fury of a thin, leather-bound book.