Once Upon a Time in Hell (22 page)

The main doors swung open and more men entered, alerted by the noise.

"Get down!" I shouted, still in a state of panic.

"To hell with that." Meridiana aimed her purloined revolvers and let rip.

The doorway was filled with flailing dead men and we continued running.

Abernathy and Biter were red with suppressed excitement as we removed their gags and the rope that bound their wrists and feet.

"Did you come up here to start a war?" Abernathy wanted to know. "I trusted you damn it all!"

"Actually," I admitted, "we came up here to get her," I looked to Agrat, "to get what she's just done and help my friend."

"What do I care for your friend?" he asked. "I've got a business to run and you're killing all my customers."

"His friend is Lucifer," said Meridiana.

Abernathy's face lit up. "He's back? Why didn't you say? About time too. This place has gone to the dogs since they kicked him out." He looked at Biter. "No offence."

Biter was too hung up on what Meridiana had said to even notice. "Lucifer?" he asked, nodding towards the factory, "in there?"

"And shooting his way through Greaser's gang."

Biter stared at the closed doors. "What did I say?" he muttered.

"About what?" I asked. "About your invisible friend! I thought you were just off your head! I didn't know it was him! What did I say? Have I offended him? Is he going to come out here and kill me next?"

"I wouldn't have thought so."

"Maybe I should just shoot myself anyway. Try and get on his good side."

"I'd be happy to help," said Agrat.

"Nobody's shooting anybody but me," said Meridiana, heading towards the door, "now let's get out in the open."

"Shouldn't we give him a hand?" I asked, looking towards the continued sound of gunfire.

"Elwyn, honey," she said, "he's the most powerful being, bar one, in existence, he don't need your help."

We stepped outside, Meridiana waving for us to keep back against the wall of the building. "Greaser had a whole army up here," she said. "They could be pointing their guns at us right now."

"The house," I said. "We can take cover there."

As we ran we heard shouts coming from the far side of the building. The noise from the factory had finally raised alarm bells.

Abernathy led the way, pushing open the front door of the house and waving us all inside.

"Doubt he has his hired guns in the home," said Biter. "A man of class wouldn't do that.

Servants, yes... there'll be plenty of those but he'll keep the others out."

"Then this is definitely the best place to be," agreed Meridiana.

"Upstairs," said Agrat. "From the verandah we can see what's going on. She began to walk ahead then stopped and turned. "Well? Come on then! Need I remind you that I know my way around? Some of us were here as guests." One of the maids—to my embarrassment I cannot say if it was the same one who brought me my drink, I wasn't paying attention at the time—saw us march through the entrance hall and gave a short scream.

"Just find a goddamned wardrobe and hide in it!" Meridiana suggested as we worked our way up the stairs.

The house was a terrifying mixture of styles once you paid attention to it. On the surface it seemed light and breezy, the sort of refined place you'd expect to find on the inside of all those nice, ivy-covered bricks. Once you started spotting the disturbing details though you found the personality of the owner crept through.

A row of oil paintings that ran up the stairs depicted everything from rape to infanticide, all rendered in the muted, soft brushstrokes you expect from old pictures. You can make any thing look classy with a thin enough brush.

A bookcase at the head of the stairs was filled with volumes bound in something that still breathed, bookmarks shifting within the pages.

The flowers thrust into an ornate vase spat at me as I passed, their saliva thick and gelatinous.

A rug on the landing had obviously once tried to escape, the nails that held it fast also explaining the whimpering it offered as we walked past.

Out on the verandah we found things had moved on in our absence. A gang of maybe fifty or so people had made their way to the front of the house, all shouting and checking their guns.

The stables were on fire. Plumes of smoke billowing from the cracked windows. I thought about the row after row of human cattle Greaser had kept in there. As sickening a thought as it was, I hoped the fire would be a blessing. I was under no illusion they could have been saved, they were too far gone.

"My Agnes is in there!" Abernathy shouted. It took me a moment to realise he was refer ring to his ride. "She's carried me faithfully for ninety years or more, he'd better not let her burn to a crisp."

It was almost as if Lucifer had heard him as the stable doors crashed open and a herd of frightened rakh (and one nonplussed Agnes) came flooding out, trampling over the closest men.

So, yeah, the animals were safe, fuck the poor humans.

It took Greaser's men a few moments to respond, busily trying to get out of the way as the animals charged. Then they trained their guns on the open doorway, now filled with smoke, and begin to fire. Bullet after bullet ploughed into the smoke. After a few moments someone had the bright idea of actually waiting for a target. There was silence. And then a figure slowly walked into view. Lucifer, dragging Greaser behind him.

A few more shots rang out until a man—who had clearly decided he was leader in his employer's absence—told everyone to 'wait just a goddamned minute'.

Lucifer threw Greaser to the ground in front of him. The man was still alive, though whether through the protection he'd previously bragged about or because Lucifer wanted him that way it was impossible to tell.

"Well then," my friend shouted, "if we're going to do it, then let's do it."

And the air filled with gunfire.

Whether the bullets from his opponent's guns found their mark or not, it was impossible to tell. If they did, it didn't bother Lucifer any. He just walked forward, emptying chamber after chamber into the men. While his six-shooters looked normal enough, they seemed to have a bottomless reservoir of bullets. He just fired and fired until his gun began to glow with the same heat that continued to radiate from his mouth.

It was a massacre and one that didn't bother him a jot.

A thought occurred to me and I turned to Meridiana. "Isn't everyone immortal down here? How can you kill something that's immortal?"

"You can't," she said, "by definition. But you can destroy it for awhile. It depends on how powerful the being is that's being destroyed. Some things regrow. Some, like me or you for ex ample, would just be lost. The little essence of life we have floating on the wind never again to gain form."

I looked at Agrat. "Well, thanks for that, I'm so glad you made me immortal!"

"Just try not to get destroyed," she replied. "As long as there's enough functioning meat left I'll still be able to cash you in one day."

"That's horrible."

"Something like him," Meridiana continued, pointing at Lucifer, "is almost too powerful to destroy at all. That's why he was banished in the first place. Kicked out and made Non Grata so that even if he did come back he wouldn't be able to achieve anything. Guess that's one plan that's gone to the wall."

"What does he want?" Biter asked me. "Has he told you? You're his friend, he must have told you?"

"He just said he wanted to come home. I don't think he has any big plan beyond that."

Agrat scoffed. "That's Lucifer, the one-time ruler of the Dominion of Circles and rival to the Almighty. Of course he's got a plan beyond that."

I suddenly realised there was silence and we looked down to see him staring up at us. "She might be right at that," Lucifer said. "You all want to hear it?"

W
E DESCENDED INTO
the charnel house that Greaser's garden had become. Everywhere you looked someone lay in pieces. Dotted about, the rakh were nibbling on charred arms or legs.

Nice animals.

Greaser was trying to threaten and cuss, pretty much a way of life from what I could tell of the man. Having Lucifer's boot on the back of his head, pushing his face down into the dirt was cramping his style in that regard.

"I don't want to hear him right now," Lucifer said. "My ears are just about full. I'll listen presently though, because I am interested in all the things he has to say." Greaser whined and Lucifer pressed down with his boot. "Well, maybe not all the things."

Biter dropped down in front of him, bowing and scraping in the dirt. "Oh Lucifer!" he howled. "If I have done anything to offend you in your glorious munificence, anything at all, I can only ask that you forgive me. I didn't know! I couldn't have guessed! I mean... seriously, how the fuck was I supposed to know he wasn't just crazy? Huh? He looks crazy! He sounds crazy!"

His tone was getting more and more panicked. "If he'd only said, 'I happen to be friends with the most wondrous Prince of Darkness so mind your manners around me...' I would! Of course I would!"

"Get up, you ass," Lucifer said. "I'm far too old and out of the game for all that bowing and begging. Never was much my style anyway."

Biter slowly got back to his feet and shuffled behind the rest of us. "As you wish my Lord," he muttered. "Anyway," Lucifer continued, "ain't like Elwyn here knew is it? When you're Non Grata there are rules. You can't so much as give your own damned name. Names have power, they open doors and start fights. I was nobody. Hell, still am."

"Please spare us the false humility," said Agrat. I was kind of surprised she knew the meaning of the word. "You said you were here with a plan?"

"I wasn't," he said. "I really wasn't. But I don't much like what I'm hearing about this little bastard and his friends in high places." He gave Greaser a little kick. "Things are not how they should be here. Maybe I shouldn't care but, damn it, I always did. That's why he kicked me out in the first place, I would keep questioning..."

"This isn't sounding much like a plan so far," said Agrat. "You've made me—indirectly I might add, and certainly will if questioned—reverse the order and wish of the one being in existence whose orders and wishes are generally accepted as non-reversible. That's a big enemy I just made, I'm hoping you're going to tell me why that shouldn't have me sobbing in fear."

Lucifer shrugged. "I doubt he'll be of a mind to punish anyone but me," he said, "and I'm happy to ride alone, you know that."

"Nah," side Biter, "who would miss this?"

Lucifer shrugged. "Up to you. We rest up for a short while, then we ride on the Dominion of Clouds."

A
LONZO SAT DOWN
in his Observation Lounge and mentally shuffled the cards he had been dealt.

The writer was in place, as was the Messiah and the Antichrist. This, he believed, would be the Holy Trinity moving forward. The wellspring from which a new, firmer, more potent and practical, existence could be drawn. The people outside the town were becoming more afraid, more desperate by the moment and that was also good. In his experience, nothing was so malleable as the mortal mind in a state of agitation. Never give them time to think. Just wind them up to their maximum capacity and then give them a vent, a way forward, a solution. And if some people lost their lives along the way then that was no real problem. After all, who wouldn't rather give up all that hard work and uncertainty for an eternity reduced to spiritual essence?

"What you doing?" He looked up to see the small girl that was his current charge. She was pulling a wooden train along on a piece of string. Her bright, blonde pigtails gave her a wonderfully metaphorical halo as she stood in the doorway to the room.

"Keeping an eye on things," he replied.

"Sounds boring."

"You always think that, but someone's got to do it."

"Why? Just let them all do what they like."

Alonzo fought to control his temper. "That never ends well. Now leave me in peace so I can concentrate." The little girl shrugged, dragged her wooden train over to the chair on the far side of the room, sat down and began to hum.

Alonzo did his best to ignore her, sweeping his arm over the floor and changing the scene playing out beneath him.

He found himself looking at a group of people riding hard through the hinterland between the Dominions. His eyes were drawn, most particularly to the man at their centre.

"Oh no," he sighed, "not him... why did he have to choose now to rear his head?"

"Someone you don't like?" asked the girl.

"Trouble," Alonzo replied, "someone I didn't plan for."

He stamped his foot in anger, zooming in on the image and staring into Lucifer's face, writ large beneath him.

"You're supposed to be Non Grata!" he said. "So how am I looking at you?"

W
HEN
L
UCIFER HAD
said we could rest up for a short while, I had kind of hoped it might be for more than ten minutes.

I hadn't slept now for over a day and I was beginning to lose what little grip on reality I'd already possessed.

"We need to get to the Dominion of Clouds before the end of The Fastening," he said, by way of explanation. It left me none the wiser but I was too tired and too confused to ask for more information. I knew I wouldn't understand it any better.

"I love how he just assumes I intend to ride with you." Agrat moaned. "As I haven't got better things to do with my time." "If he's going up against the Dominion of Clouds," said Biter, "you want to be a part of it, don't deny it. You think anything else is going to be worth a damn while something like that's happening?"

"Perhaps I would be better placed talking to my friends there," she said, "rather than throwing myself in with outlaws."

"You haven't any friends there," said Lucifer, "never did."

This angered her so much I could only assume it was true.

"Well," said Biter, "as far as I can see it's obvious. If something big is going down I want to be on the side that scares me most."