Lucifer's Lottery (12 page)

What greater gift could anyone ask?

So this is it
, Krilid thought, half-queasy as he gazed down. It was in the mouth of an illegally duplicated Nectoport that he stood, leaning slightly out. The technology amazed him, and it verified rumors he’d heard for years that certain anti-Luciferic sects had engaged their own White Sorcerers to psychically steal the secrets from Lucifer’s own Bio-Wizards and copy them for their own use. A Nectoport could be thought of as an invisible tunnel that, snakelike, covered great distances in seconds because it existed in a different phase-shift and therefore inverted true space—the ultimate achievement in occult science. The “tunnel” was reportedly capable of extending indefinitely, and all that was ever visible of it was the forward Egress and Observation Port.

But even with the security tether, Krilid found little piece of mind; the tether itself could break (causing a fatal fall), while this very assignment, for all he knew, could be bogus. In Hell, information was like character. One never knew what to trust—indeed, if trust even
existed
in this infernal sprawl.

Approximately a mile above the very spot in which Conscript Favius stood on his rampart, Krilid hovered. The spotty black clouds hid him fairly well, yet he could take no chances of detection. The clouds were patrolled now by demonic troops in balloons, and there were always the heinous Gremlins who lived and hunted in these clouds, semi-weightless monsters with saw-teeth and mouths that opened vertically beneath globose, black-veined eyes; not to mention untold flying things and Levatopuses, which were like bedbugs only they lived off the sooty waste in the clouds rather than a sleeper’s blood. Krilid’s direct field commander—the Fallen Angel Ezoriel—had provided not only the Nectoport but also a Hand of Glory, whose flame-tipped
fingertips imparted a skirt of invisibility, which prevented unwelcome observers from seeing the Port’s floating green rim of light.

Down there
, he thought, staring at the Reservoir’s nearly endless basin. Empty now, true, but soon it would be filled with six billion gallons of . . . something . . .

Something, yes. But
what?

Krilid was a Hellborn Troll, squat, heavily muscled, but with a smushed head that looked lengthened and lopsided. This anomaly was caused through punishment a long time ago: Krilid had been captured by Municipal Golems, while stealing a box of Ghoul Steaks from a delivery vehicle in Boniface Square. He’d spent the night in a Constabulary jail, and the next day a Torture Detachment had slowly yanked his genitals off with pulleys, and then he’d been treated to the “Head-Bender,” a later-model torture device in which the convict’s head was placed in a specially constricted pipe-vise. Krilid’s skull was pulverized to bits and then remolded, whereupon a Re-Ossification Spell caused the crushed bone to adhere after the fact. The pain was incalculable, such that he prayed they’d kill him and be done with it—Trolls, unlike the Human Damned, were mortal—but the officers of the Constabulary would have none of that. It served Satan far better for the deformed to
live
, protracting their misery.

And miserable Krilid had been, but he’d also been
mad. Being born a Troll is bad enough
, he knew,
but having to walk the streets with a bent head is even worse
.

Krilid wanted revenge. He could kill himself, sure, and then this horrific existence would be behind him, but somehow, now, that wasn’t good enough. And going back to a life of petty crime seemed boring and scary.
Those bastards bent my head, damn it, so I’m going to get them back
.

That’s when Krilid had joined an anti-Luciferic terrorist cell.

Ezoriel himself had recruited him, and through some manner of clairvoyance had already known of the dismal Troll’s angst, pain, and yearning for revenge. “Serve God, in this place
abandoned
by God,” the Fallen Angel had told him in a voice that shimmered. His face shimmered, too, like sunlight on a rippling lake, such that its details could not be perceived. “Join the Contumacy and be a part of God’s glory when we overthrow Lucifer and take over. After that, rest assured—we shall convert this canyon of sin, hatred, and blasphemy into a place of hope, a place full of the love of God.”

Krilid didn’t know from God, but Ezoriel’s recruitment speech was just what he’d needed to hear. These people were
terrorists
who raided, bombed, harassed, and/or destroyed anything or anyone serving the Morning Star. The Troll’s biggest beef was with the Torture Detachment; hence, Ezoriel had granted his first request: to drop Sulphur Bombs on the place from the Nectoport. He’d scored multiple direct hits.

Since then, he’d bombed several targets in the Industrial Zone, had kidnapped a Grand Duke, had taken out several demonic police chiefs with a matchlock muzzle-loader, and had helped blow up the Central Research Grotto at the Klaus Barbie District’s Hexegenic Virus Labyrinth. They used a separate Nectoport to pipe in millions of cubic yards of methane pilfered from the Waste Pits at the city’s largest Pulping Station, then set it off with limelight bombs. Most of the Labyrinth’s service passages had collapsed, while the Central Research Grotto had exploded with such force it had cause a Hellquake that split the District in half. Krilid had partied hard that night at Ezoriel’s fortress, and had even been rewarded with a liter of distilled water.

Now, though?

The Troll wondered as he hovered. His sextant showed him the area that Ezoriel had called the “Target Extraction Point,” and on
this
mission, the “target” wasn’t a building, nor was it a living target to be assassinated. Instead it was a living target to be “extracted.”

Alive.

If
the intel was correct.

Krilid identified a landmark after adjusting the sextant’s gauges to accommodate the coordinates: “Sixty-six cubits out from the Reservoir’s southernmost corner, where you’ll see the Main Sub-Inlet,” Ezoriel had told him.

The landmark—hard as it was to see against the Wandermast Reservoir’s unrelenting
black
—was a particular pile of bodies from an Emaciation Squad. They’d died on their feet digging out this immense quarry and, via protocol, their twitching, unnourished bodies would be left to shudder there until the Reservoir was filled. When this happened, the landmark would be submerged, he knew, but at least he now had a general idea where to look for the “target” to be “extracted.”

I’m not liking this
, Krilid thought.

Was he being set up? The thought occurred to him, but any logical reason didn’t. Ezoriel is said to have never told a lie.

But bad information isn’t a lie, is it?

Perhaps Ezoriel didn’t know for sure. “Unimpeachable authority,” the Fallen Angel had said of his information source. “It cannot be doubted.”

Yeah?
Krilid questioned.

Then why had he been sent on this mission totally
alone
, and in an expensive Nectoport? To attempt an “extraction” in what was certainly one of Hell’s most guarded secret projects?

It almost sounded to Krilid that he’d been sent on a suicide mission but no one had seen fit to tell him that.

The echoes of the deaconess’s words trailed behind her like a banner as they mounted the dark stairs. “The attic is the best place, for the power of its ambience. The cliché—do you understand? The sheer
weight
of the idea?”

“No, I
don’t
understand,” Hudson said, the whore just behind him.

“The same as the house itself, and what happened in the house. The house has become what’s known as a Bleed-Point, while certain things from the
history
of the house serve as functional Totems. They’re Power Relics.”

Certain things
, Hudson wondered.
She means the head
. . . “What did you mean when you called yourself a failure but I’m a success?”

He could see the woman nod ahead of him. “You’re on one end of the Fulcrum, I’m on the other—the
bad
end, I’m afraid.”

“The Fulcrum, huh?” Hudson said.

“I was solicited because I was solicitable. My ebbing faith made me ripe for the Machinators. But you? You’re actually the opposite. It’s the desire of the powers I now serve that you make the
choice
. My rewards are minuscule compared to the rewards you will receive should you accept this incalculable prize.”

Great
, Hudson thought.

The stairs raised them into a long, dusty attic. Even after dusk, it was stiflingly hot. The prostitute began lighting candles from a bag she’d carried up, and in the growing light, Hudson saw that the attic was essentially empty, save for a couple of lawn chairs and a couple of boxes. The
deaconess went to the back wall, then paced off six steps toward the room’s center. There, she placed one of the chairs.

“This is where you will sit.”

From a darker corner, then, she pulled out—

Whoa!
Hudson thought.

—a brand-new pickax.

“And this is how we will access the Trustee.”

“What are you
talking
about?” Hudson whined.

The deaconess smiled. She removed her Roman collar and started to unbutton her surplice. “Remove your clothes, dear,” she said to the prostitute. “We must show our God-given bodies unclothed, to curry favor from our lord.”

The prostitute smirked. “I want my fuckin’ money first. You said you’d give me another six hundred.”

The bills were produced like a finger-snap, and handed over.

“Curry favor from your
lord?
” Hudson questioned. “Somehow I don’t think you mean the Lord God.”

“Our Lord Lucifer,” the deaconess said. “Certainly, you’ve already guessed that.”

“Yeah, sure. But the thing I want to know is how did those skinny demons manage to get a hold of your Lord Lucifer’s
poop
to write sixes on your body?”

The deaconess popped out more buttons. “It’s a process known as Object Transposition, a very new occult science. It’s subdimensional. The Demons—and the excrement itself, by the way—were only corporeal for the duration of the rite. Six minutes. But six minutes were enough.” Then she dropped the surplice to the floor, to stand splendidly nude in the candlelight.

Hudson tried not to gawp at the robust physique. “You seem different today. Yesterday you were all fidgety.”

She went behind the prostitute to untie her faded bikini top. When the garment dropped, buoyant breasts came
unloosed, with large, irregular nipples that looked like plops of chewed beef.

“That’s because I’ve acclimated to the entails of the Machination Link. And I’m not resisting it anymore. I’ve accepted it, the beginning of my glorious demise. I’m being
machinated
, you see—by a trained Channeler and a high-echelon Archlock who operate out of a Telethesy Unit at the De Rais Academy.” She smiled. “Think of it as puppeteering—from Hell. Only now my own soul has amalgamated with the process.”

Hudson stared.

“Oh, and Mr. Hudson? You’ll need to remove your clothes as well.”

Hudson winced. “I’m not taking off my
clothes
, for God’s sake.”

“For Lucifer’s, not God’s. It’s all part of the protocol, I’m afraid. You must be as naked as Adam when he stalked out of the garden.”

What am I doing?
came the thought as he began to strip. At least being nude would make the heat more tolerable. The deaconess and the whore were already shining with sweat.

Now the deaconess was inspecting the prostitute’s heavy breasts, twilling the meaty nipples with her fingers. “Let’s see here now,” she murmured. Milk sprayed out at once. “Yes, good, so
full
” Then the deaconess tasted a wet fingertip. “Ah. Soiled. Perfect.” Next her hand stroked up and down the recently deflated belly, whose stretch marks now looked like the gouges of a garden claw. An abundant sprawl of black pubic hair jutted nestlike from between the prostitute’s pasty legs. The deaconess ran her fingers through it, fascinated. “So how many babies have come out of here, hmm?”

“Six, seven—fuck, I don’t know,” the prostitute said, disconcerted.

“And you left them
all
to die?”

“Yeah. Fuck it. The world’s a bunch’a shit anyway. Who wants to bring kids up with all this shit goin’ on? Besides, I make more money when I’m pregnant.”

“Really? How interesting.”

“Sure. Kink tricks, you know? Lotta guys out there go nuts for knocked-up streetwalkers. They pay more. So I pocket the cash, and when it’s time, I pop the kid out in an alley somewhere and walk away.”

“Perfect,” whispered the deaconess.

Hudson felt sick.

WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!

Hudson
and
the prostitute jumped at the start. The sound of impact shook the house. When Hudson cleared his confusion, he noticed the deaconess–

WHAM!

—driving the pickax point with gusto into the wall. After a dozenish strikes, she’d managed to tear out a hole about the diameter of a dinner plate, roughly four feet from the floor.

Hudson peered out the hole, which showed the moonlit backyard. Then he refaced the deaconess.

“I ask you once more, Mr. Hudson. Do you wish to proceed?”

Hudson could feel the sweat pouring out of him. He wanted to say
no
, and he wanted to leave, but instead?

“Yes.”

“I thought you would.” And now she had the plastic bag again, and reached in. Hudson grimaced before she even extracted the contents: the rotten head of a baby.

The small face had dried to a rictus. But then Hudson noticed something even worse. The
top
of the head was missing.

The deaconess threw the head through the hole in the wall, where it landed, bouncing, in the scrub-laden backyard.

“But I thought—”

“That I needed it for a ritual of some sort?” the gleaming woman finished. The nipples on the high breasts stood out as if she were sexually frantic. “Not the head itself. This. The skullcap.” And from the bag she produced just that: the top of the infant’s skull, which had obviously been sawn off. At once Hudson recalled the smudged coping saw at the church.