The Devil Eats Here (Multi-Author Short Story Collection) (5 page)

*

That evening, Dick was strolling a mile or two out of sight from town, when he jumped at a noise. He swore at the sight of the devil next to him.

“Mr. Skyler, why did you trade the korba I gave you?”

“It bought me two pistols, a sword, and some healing ointments.”

“Why didn’t you get the rituals to repair your leg?”

“Those damned priests want you to wait forever while they try to fit you in to a sodden appointment. Costs too much anyway. I’m a frugal man. Look at how I dress.”

“This isn’t what we agreed on.”

“You said, use my imagination. Sod off and let me kill the target. My way.”

“The target’s close, Mr. Skyler. Please pipe down.” The devil advanced, close enough so the details of his face were just beginning to fill in under the sparse starlight. “Less than a quarter mile. Straight ahead.”

“Keep out of sight then, devil. Stay at a distance, or you’ll mess things up.”

*

Dick edged a few hundred paces farther along. His jaw twitched with the pain in his knee each time his right instep touched ground. He tried to channel the leg pain into the old alertness, and anger at the inconvenience of hiding his limp. He’d show Vassos Milagro he was the same old Dick Skyler, only this time he’d not be surprised.

He’d be Mean Dick Skyler. Deadly Dick Skyler. Pissed-off Dick Skyler.

A plaintive, tearful cry reached him from the darkness ahead:

“Help... please, help!”

The voice of a woman. A young one, and pretty by the sound of her.

“Is... is someone there?” came the voice again. “I was wounded by bandits. I escaped while they killed the others, I have an arrow in my leg. Please help...”

Her plea ended with an urgent gasp.

Dick strode up to where a prone, feminine form writhed in the bushes, next to a covered lantern. Despite the cold, she was only half-dressed.

Calculating the direction he’d rush from if he’d planned this ambush himself, Dick made a half-turn and fired his pistol at the center of the enshadowed figure jogging up behind him.

Two screams came. On one side of Dick, a man fell, clutching his gut. On Dick’s other side, the woman sat up and stared in horror.

Dick started in surprise. Then he decided it was to his advantage to feign even greater surprise, and shuffled a bit toward her.

“Katrina! What are you doing all the way out here?”

“Father! You’ve shot Vassos! How could you?”

“It’s dark, lass! I didn’t know it was him, nor you.”

Dick’s daughter crawled around him to the side of Vassos Milagro, gurgling and thrashing about.

Ruffled at how she’d willfully ignored him, Dick raised his voice to a shout. “Can’t say I’m disappointed though. I am your father, you know! And he damn near did me in, good and proper!”

“I suppose. I know he cut your eye out when he took me,” she wheedled. She hunched over to fuss over Vassos, lifting his shirt to examine the bullet wound. “But... well, Vassos and I are married now.”

“At least this time you didn’t stick me with a bill for a sodden party. Which husband is he, now? Number four?”

“Those marriages were loveless charades. Vassos and I have plans. We’re going to make the church of Grumach a big player in Liebgaard! We’ll have money, power! Everyone will fear us.”

“That’s a long way off, honey. I’m not exactly pissing my boots. Look, why don’t you take this healing ointment of mine, and spread it around your husband’s wound some. Close it up a bit, so at least he won’t bleed away here.”

“But what then?”

“Then, take me to your camp. I want to talk to the rest of your people. All at once, as a group.”

For the first time, Vassos made a coherent noise. Teeth clenched in pure hatred, he glared up at Dick.

Dick put his hands on his knees and carefully leaned forward, searching out the eyes of his son-in-law. “Vassos, we get to camp, I tell you what to say to get everyone’s attention, then I give you the rest of my healing ointment. I make you an offer, then it’s your decision to say yes or no. It’s all up to you. How about it?”

Katrina rotated her now-angry face to Dick. “What are you up to this time, father?”

Dick bit his lip and made a brief look to his own boots. “Katrina, I’m sort of back with the Unmaker church. I know Grumach’s all about torture and insanity, and disease, and messing with the dead... he’s got to have some common ground with the Unmaker’s destruction and evil, wouldn’t you think?”

“I suppose.”

Dick bit his tongue, then glared at her. “Don’t say that! Say something else, anything. I’ve always hated the cow-simple way you say ‘I suppose’. How many people in your camp? Six?”

“Four. With the two of us, it’s six. Six living humans and one plodder.”

Dick yawned, pretending he knew what a plodder was.

*

“How much farther is it,” whispered Dick with heated impatience.

“Only about two hundred yards,” said Vassos, massaging his abdomen with a crude, fumbling stroke that likely did more harm than good.

“Quiet. Who’s that up in the air? On the pole, near your campfire? Is that an initiation ceremony?”

“He’s our latest victim,” bragged Vassos. “He’ll bleed to death by morning.”

“That’s a good idea father!” commented Katrina, her pale face almost bright against the night. “We should use this hanging pole as an initiation ceremony!”

“Sort of a hazing,” said Dick, “like my army buddies and the Mule-fuck Club.”

“Well, yes. Only we won’t bleed our new members quite to death, the way we do our victims. It’ll be more of a welcoming thing.”

“Good idea,” said Dick, giving Katrina a respectful nod. “It’s important for an initiation ceremony to make you feel part of something bigger than yourself. So you know it’s not all about you.”

Vassos, choking now, spat with rage. “Satisfied old man? We’re here at camp, and you want to make a speech. You said you wanted me to say something, to get everyone’s attention? Now’s your chance, Dick! Tell me what to say. And this better not be a trick.”

“It’s not a trick, is it father?” asked Katrina, her mouth falling open right after the question.

Vassos cut off Dick’s reply: “If it was a trick, he’d have attacked us when it was just the three of us, not waited until he got to our allies. He also gave me healing ointment, and now he’s coming into our midst and making himself vulnerable. You know what, he’s actually gaining my trust.”

Katrina put a shaky hand to her mouth. “I suppose... but why do you want to work with us, Father? Why have you forgiven us?”

Dick wiped his brow. “Katrina, I’m getting old, you know.”

“But you were always so angry before!”

Vassos leaned left and right, hugging himself. “Somehow Dick, I believe you! You truly came here to mend fences with your daughter, didn’t you?”

Katrina edged closer to Dick. “Is that why you’re here, Father?”

Dick touched her face. “It’s all because of you, Katrina.”

Katrina leaned a bit closer. Dick crashed his callus-hardened fist into her jaw. She crumpled, her head spinning at a dangerous angle.

Dick kicked Vassos savagely in the groin. “I’m here for my granddaughter.”

Clutching at himself and rolling over, Vassos bawled: “Plodder!!”

Dick threw all his weight into a dive at Vassos, grabbing him round the throat. Too close for the sword, he worked the dirk up to nick his enemy’s throat, but then thought better of it. He manhandled the blade into Vassos’ mouth, cutting the tightly-shut lips and prying the teeth apart. Once inside, Dick worked the knife around in a jagged circle. Vassos’ crying turned to a blubbering gurgle.

Dick thrust his thumb into Vassos’ mouth, cutting himself on his own blade. He seized the tattered remnant of tongue. He dragged it into the air. It bled like a gut hamster.

Dick closed Vassos’ jaw shut, turning his enemy’s screams to humming, whimpery snorts. Leaning on Vassos’ mouth with all his weight, he dragged the blade around the contours of his son-in-law’s eyes, dipping into the sockets to catch and pierce the delicate bits inside.

Dick jerked his head up. Someone had squat down beside him: it was the devil, sporting a wide grin. Dick could hear shouts elsewhere in the camp.

The devil’s grin took on a hint of confusion as Dick pulled out his other jar of healing ointment. Dick smeared it liberally in Vassos’ mouth, then over both of the slashed eyeballs.

“What!” The devil’s fingers, entwined in anticipation a moment ago, twitched in frustration. “Stop, what are you?  Why are you saving his life?”

A huge figure crashed through the underbrush. Dick guessed it was twelve feet tall, with five arms stitched into the torso. Its arms were much longer than the legs, and would have almost dragged on the ground had they not been clearing branches out of its way. Masks of human facial skin adorned its arms and chest. It had three bloated human heads: these were askew from the torso’s stitching half-undone, and from stag antlers attached somehow. The apex of its bulk was a crown of severed feet bound in barbed wire.

Dick pointed at it. “Because I can’t kill that thing.” He dug one hand into Vassos’ armpit, the other under Vassos’ thigh, and yanked the gibbering Grumachian to an upright position. Then he slammed Vassos into a tree trunk, face-first.

“But if I know priests of Grumach,” Dick averred as Vassos fell insensible, “they always order their toughest pets: first priority, defend and protect their creator’s sorry hide. Vassos has to live so it’s got something to protect, otherwise it’ll just eat everybody, startin’ with me.”

Dick did a somersault - he couldn’t remember having ever done one before -  positioning Vassos between him and the plodder. The thing stopped advancing when positioned directly above Vassos. Dick made a ginger circle of steps around Vassos, but the horror did not move from its location. It only kept rotating to face Dick.

“What now?” demanded the devil. “Will you keep your promise?”

“By magical power I summon my smokemare!”
yelled Dick in mad triumph. It was at least a decade since he’d been astride a horse, and he missed it. Air around him spiraled into a little tornado of cheery blue dust. This coalesced into a translucent gray body, with an equine head and misty hooves. Common sense told him the stirrups would also be insubstantial, but somehow they weren’t. Dick mounted up with practiced ease.

“Mr. Skyler! Will... you... keep... your... contract?”

“Nope! Not yet! Going on a pig hunt! Wanna come?”

“I can’t watch this!” The devil vanished with a frustrated roar.

Dick relished the feel of riding again. Instead of riding straight into camp, he circled its perimeter. The heavy brush would have made it tough going for an ordinary horse, but his smokemare’s hooves just whooshed and whistled through like storm winds.

Four people milled about the clearing’s center. All four looked to be under twenty years old. One boy had a two-pronged fork for a hand, and one girl had a hook. The boy also wore nipple clamps.

The other two had brought a torch, lighting their bright young faces marred by scarring. This couple was huddled together nude, sharing a wool blanket.

With glee, Dick remembered he was in country foreign to Foverre. Therefore, it was virtually certain none of them would recognize what a smokemare was. Dick lowered his voice, powering wind out from his diaphragm.

“Followers of Grumach!”
he boomed.
“Behold my ghost horse!”

The four looked at each other. They came closer to each other. One lit a torch, revealing their scars in more detail.

“Where’s Vassos?” called the naked girl.

Dick slowed to a trot, then went into a prance fit for parade ground.
“Put your hand into the body of the ghost horse. Touch its heart, and feel the essence of Grumach!”

The Grumachians exchanged looks. “Where’s Vassos?” the naked girl repeated.

“Touch the heart of the ghost horse! You shall receive great power.”

All four walked forward, almost in unison. Dick marvelled that followers of an evil god like Grumach could be so stupid.

Dick rode into their midst, in a ceremonial trot. The two clothed Grumachians had machetes, and got to him first. They stretched forth their hands, accepting the offer of power.

Mean Dick Skyler went to work.

His first stroke stabbed the armed boy in the cheek. His second slashed the side of the boy’s neck until blood audibly spurted. His third drove down, into the armed girl’s undefended heart.

The nude couple ran for a tent, but Dick rode after and caught them. His sword severed the boy’s hand in a downward whirl. The boy’s stump spurted blood, the boy grasped it, and Dick stabbed him deeply in the gut. He twisted the sword on the way out to ensure a fatal wound.

The little coal-miner in Dick’s head cheered him on.

The remaining girl reached her tent and huddled behind the flap. Dick dismounted and hobbled over as fast as his bum leg allowed. He heard the girl’s whimpers inside, mingled with the kicking and pissing of her dying cohorts. “Gods know why you ran to this tent, girl,” he chuckled. “Shoulda run to the woods, ya might’ve lost me in the dark.”

“I surrender!” she called. “If you spare me I’ll let you take me!”

“Will you now? Come out and let’s have a look at you.”

“Pull the flap back.”

Dick did so. As he expected, she lunged with a knife. He grabbed her arm at the elbow, twisted it about, and broke it. When she fell, he fell with her, landing knee-first on her abdomen.

“Stop whining! Tell me where Becky is, wench, or I’ll feed you to me ghost horse!”

“She...she... she’s in the little tent. We’ve got her tied up. She can’t run.”

“Whaddaya mean, can’t run?”

“We... cut the string in the flesh of her leg. Her calf. She can’t run!”

“Hmm. Good thinking.” Dick lifted his knee, flipped the girl over roughly and replaced the knee into her back. Twisting to face her feet, he cut deeply into her calf until he was sure he’d disabled her. “Wait here.”

The girl seemed to have passed out. Dick didn’t care whether she was faking.

He thudded over to the smallest tent, grabbing a firebrand from the campfire on the way. He opened the small tent with careful slowness. Peering in, he saw his gagged granddaughter Becky, chained by the ankle to an iron ball. Even in this light, he saw she was a ruddier version of Katrina, but with the same auburn hair. He was relieved to see nothing else seemed wrong with her.