Butcher Bird

  “You tell me,” Ashbliss said. “Behold.”

  When he was still a child, Spyder had found a book of his mother’s. It was an art history text, left over from her brief attempt at community college. She’d lasted less than a semester and bad-mouthed the curriculum, the teachers and the other students nonstop whenever the subject came up. But even as a child it puzzled Spyder why she’d kept her school books if they brought back such painful memories. It wasn’t until years later that he realized that it was probably his father’s nagging that had propelled his mother out of school. Spyder’s father considered all forms of self-improvement, short of studying innovations in Detroit horsepower and chasing strip-club tail, useless and, in all likelihood, un-Christian. Spyder never understood why his mother had said that he was so much like his father. He knew that they were nothing alike, and he’d hated her for saying that. He hated his father just because.

  The picture in his mother’s art history text that had captivated him as a child was the Hell panel from Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych, The Garden of Earthly Delights. It wasn’t the clever and artful ways the demons tortured the damned souls that had fascinated Spyder. He’d studied the top, the far background of the painting, where none of the sexy tortures were happening. That section of the painting depicted a ruined, burned-out city, or a city that had been built along very different aesthetic lines from a human city. The buildings and the sky above were black, as if grimed under a permanent layer of soot. Shafts of lemon-colored light shone from the windows of each building and sliced through the smoky darkness, which only added to the feeling that this was ground zero for some unknown holocaust.

  All those memories and images came back to Spyder as Ashbliss led him down the chorus-line road and into the enormous construction site for Heaven 2.0.

  The scale of the project was so vast, Spyder’s mind couldn’t take it all in. Looking at the place was like being in a car accident—it came to him as a series of still images flashing into his brain, but the whole of it was beyond his comprehension. In the far distance entire mountain ranges were being blasted away or gobbled up by machines whose steel jaws were almost as large as the tops of the mountains themselves. A white sea of activity surged around the giant machines and Spyder realized that this ebbing and flowing tide was made up of millions of souls moving the ore mined by the machines to the horrible open-pit foundry nearby. Flames, miles high, rose from the foundry and molten steel flowed into molds down dozens of chutes, each as wide and as deep as the biggest river Spyder had ever seen.

  There were workshops nearby where demons supervised souls in some of the more delicate work needed for the structures: the polishing and cutting of precious stones, the stripping of huge sheets of mother-of-pearl from enormous shells, the gold-leafing of delicate statuary. Outside the workshops fortunes in diamonds, rubies and sapphires were piled, along with amber boulders the size of a man.

  Millions of tons of concrete sluiced into giant foundation holes from thousands of storage tanks. At the bottom of the holes, souls were directing the lines that spewed the wet concrete evenly across the floor. Souls too slow to move or too clumsy to escape slipped under the gray, oozing mess like they were drowning in quicksand, and disappeared. The skeletons of a thousand new buildings were being lifted into place by massive claws and welded together by souls linked to other machines through yet more umbilicals. The one constant Spyder could make out in all the chaos was that the demons were the supervisors, while the damned souls were the work-gang slaves. This knowledge was nailed down when Spyder looked to the far side of the site and watched demons feed the bodies of injured and unruly souls into huge presses that squeezed all the fluids from them. The liquid was drained into tanks to be used as lubricant for the construction machines.

  Spyder’s heart was beating fast. His brain was on overload. This was not the Hell in the books. A demon grabbed a soul sporting a mohawk, kneeless black jeans and a safety-pinned T-shirt, some squirming, hard-luck punk, and tossed him into the fluid press. A stray thought popped into Spyder’s mind: Jenny, you would love this.

  FIFTY

  HOLY SHIT

  Spyder and Ashbliss skirted the edge of the construction site and entered Pandemonium by a side street in what appeared to be the butchers’ quarter.

  Heavy-muscled demons in stiff rubber aprons hacked, gutted and sliced mystery meats in stinking shops on a dim boulevard whose gutters ran black with blood as thick and dark as chocolate syrup. Wriggling tentacles and the snouts and bellies of giant coal-colored hogs hung on rusty meat hooks next to the egg-white entrails of horse-size beetles.

  They rounded a corner and entered a wide public plaza. The place was spotlessly clean and a pleasant scent of roses filled the air. Across the boulevard was a great, domed crimson building. Below the large central dome were a cluster of smaller domed outer buildings, with spiraling white minarets at the cardinal points. The place reminded Spyder of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, though this structure was a dark and dismal parody of the ancient church-turned-mosque.

  “Is that the palace?” Spyder asked.

  Ashbliss pulled him quickly through the plaza. “Of course. Keep your head down. Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to, slave.”

  “Let’s walk by the entrance and see if there are guards.”

  “There aren’t. We’re going to my master’s home.”

  “I don’t trust you. Five minutes isn’t going to kill you.”

  “It will if one of Beelzebub’s other attendants sees us and asks questions.”

  Spyder stopped in his tracks, but Ashbliss didn’t notice. When he reached the end of the chain, he was jerked back and almost fell over. The demon yanked Spyder with all his weight.

  “Move, slave.”

  “No.”

  “We had a deal.”

  “Let’s walk by the palace.”

  “Someone will see us!”

  “They will if you keep arguing with a slave.”

  “You selfish beast. You want to trick me!”

  “No, this one usually keeps his word. Though, some women might argue the point,” spoke another more familiar voice.

  Spyder looked at a nearby bench, the apparent source of the voice, but no one was there. Then, by his ear he heard, “Bring hither the fatted calf, and let us eat, and be merry. The prodigal son is returned.”

  “My lord!” cried Ashbliss, dropping onto his belly.

  “Count? How did you get down here?”

  Count Non smiled and clapped Spyder on the back. “Guess,” he said.

  “You’re on the guest list?”

  “I make the guest list, little brother.”

  Spyder looked at Count Non and in his eyes he saw unfathomable expanses of time. A heart wounded more desperately than Spyder had ever imagined was possible. A pit of reckless and brilliant fury. Desolation and pride—these most of all. They seemed to unfold from Count Non like a pair of dark wings.

  “Holy shit,” Spyder said.

  “That was once my name in a dead Sumerian dialect.”

  “You’re Lucifer.”

  “That’s my name. Don’t wear it out.”

  Lucifer went to Ashbliss and prodded him with his boot. “Up, you rosy turd. I know what you wanted from this mortal, and you can’t have it. Normally, I wouldn’t care about your second-rate treacheries, but we’re at war and I need my loyal generals on their feet, not buried under quicklime in the garden. Understand?”

  Ashbliss got to his feet, but stared down at the black and white pavement slabs that formed a checkerboard pattern in the square. “I understand, my lord. Have mercy on me.”

  “Mercy? You must be thinking of someone else.”

  “Cut the little creep some slack,” said Spyder. “He’s supposed to be sneaky. He’s a demon for Christ sake. Oh. Is it okay to say that down here?”

  “Do you hear that?” Lucifer asked Ashbliss. “This mortal, whom you were about to betray and murder, is pleading for your life. It will be a long
time before you see such grace down here again.”

  “Kill me? We had a deal.”

  “No, you had a lie,” said Lucifer. “This little wretch doesn’t work for Beelzebub. Do you, turd?”

  “No, my lord.”

  “Ashbliss here is a freelance thug. Someone has paid him to dispose of one of my better commanders. Possibly our friend, Xero. Little Ashbliss was going to trick you into doing the dirty work for him and then eliminate you.”

  “Is that true?” Spyder asked.

  Ashbliss wrung his hands.

  “Fuck him,” said Spyder. “Drag him back to the butchers’ quarter and let them hang him up on a hook.”

  “I can’t refuse a guest,” Lucifer told the demon.

  Ashbliss burst into tears. His candles flickered out, one by one.

  “Hell, I’m just blowing off steam. Can’t you just lock him up or something?” asked Spyder. Then to Ashbliss. “You’ll tell this man everything he wants to know, won’t you, asshole?”

  Ashbliss looked up with red-rimmed eyes, not sure what to do. He lunged and grabbed Spyder’s hand, planting kisses on it with his thin membranous lips. “I will! I will! Thank you!” His candles flickered back to life.

  Spyder looked at Lucifer. “Can you make the doggie stop humping me?”

  “Come here, wretch.”

  Ashbliss went and stood before Lucifer.

  “You’ll begin your rehabilitation by going back to where you left my friend’s companions and bringing them to my palace. Go quickly, before you ruin my good mood.”

  Bowing once, then twice, Ashbliss took off across the plaza as fast as his stumpy legs would carry him.

  “Run, Forrest, run!” shouted Spyder.

  Lucifer grabbed Spyder in a quick embrace. He was dressed in a striped black-and-gold hakama, the familiar chainmail over this bare chest, and a short jacket of some shiny material—vinyl or rubber. His head was shaved, and from his mid-scalp down the back of his neck, his pale skin was covered with black tattoos, intricate lettering in what Spyder remembered from Jenny’s books was a kind of Angelic Script related to the Coptic alphabet. Even in Hell, Lucifer carried deep scars in his handsome face.

  “It’s good to see you, little brother.”

  “You know, my father was Baptist and my mother was Lutheran and sometimes I ended up going to both churches on the same Sunday, so I shouldn’t be happy to see you,” said Spyder. “But I am.”

  “Being able to embrace contradictions is a sign of intelligence.”

  “Or insanity.”

  “That’s what the archangel Gabriel once said to me. Just before

  I cut off his head.”

  “Damn.”

  “I didn’t have a choice. He would have cut off mine, if I’d given him the chance. I haven’t thought about that in a long time. You know, that was the incident that triggered the war.”

  “In Heaven?”

  “None other. You don’t really think we’re here because of the nice views?” Lucifer put out his right arm and wrapped Spyder’s left arm around it. “We can catch up while I show you around my little kingdom.”

  FIFTY-ONE

  OFF THE RADAR

  “You son-of-a-bitch. We thought you were dead,” said Spyder.

  “I was,” Lucifer said. “That body was as dead as dead could be. I just ended up back here.”

  “You wanted us here all along, didn’t you? You manipulated this whole thing just to get us here. Why?”

  “Xero Abrasax. He came here with some very impressive magic. Enough to rally an army and challenge me. I needed a champion. A mortal to kill a mortal soul. Shrike can kill him. He doesn’t show it, but he’s afraid of her. There’s something in the book she can use against him.”

  They passed a golden temple, like an Aztec step-pyramid. In front was a kind of sculpture on a tall bronze base. A heavy cloth twisted languorously on top, looping and folding over itself, as if it was spinning slowly in water. The material changed colors as it moved, revealing eye and mouth holes. Spyder realized that it wasn’t cloth, but human skins sewn together.

  “Even if I believed that, all the shit you put us through, dragging our asses through the desert and across Hell, why do that if you wanted us here all along?”

  “The universe has rules for these things. I needed Shrike here. I knew she needed a partner that could help her get here, but would have no personal desire for the book. Besides, do you think you would have come if I’d just popped into your tattoo shop one night around closing and said, ‘Hello, I’m the Prince of Darkness. Think you could help me out with a little war next Tuesday, say, sixish?’”

  “You had that demon attack me in the alley!”

  “I just pointed out to the Bitru that you were carrying its mark.”

  “I’m suddenly remembering Sunday school. You’re the Prince of Lies.”

  “First, don’t try to quote chapter and verse to me, little brother. I know every holy book ever written. I even penned a few of them. Second, the ‘Prince of Lies’ is Ahriman, the Zoroastrian lord of darkness and brother to Ahura Mazda, the lord of light. Not that I ever met either one, but I’m sure they were lovely chaps. No, before you try telling me how the world is and who I am, remember what Samuel Butler, a mortal, once said: ‘It must be remembered that we’ve only heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.’”

  “You’re just a victim of bad publicity?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Lucifer asked. “I was the loyal opposition in Heaven. I tested Job and plenty of others, all with Yahweh’s blessing. In the early days, mortal faith and free will were new concepts. That’s where the conflict began. God gave you free will, but we angels were expected to bow and scrape. I couldn’t accept that.”

  “You were going to steal God’s throne.”

  “I bet you believe everything Republicans say about Democrats. The archangel Michael accused me of wanting to sit in the throne of Heaven, but I didn’t want to be God. I didn’t want to be God’s lap dog, either.”

  “You’ve got some serious daddy issues, mister.”

  The devil smiled. “Pride, too. The books got that right, at least.”

  “So, you’re building Heaven to prove God wrong.”

  “Something like that. Heaven with free will.”

  “And not to set yourself up as a new God?”

  Lucifer stopped walking and pointed with his free hand. “That’s my palace over there. I don’t need to remind anyone down here who’s in charge. I’m not deluded enough to see myself as God. Over all, the first one did an impressive job creating the universe. It’s the details I dispute.”

  “What’s that quote? I’ve heard it a couple of ways, ‘God is in the details…’”

  “Also, ‘the devil is in the details.’ Yes, I’m aware of it. I don’t know which version is more insulting.”

  “Let me get this straight, you’re just down here having this family squabble with God for the last few million or few thousand years… I don’t get how time works here.”

  “Don’t try. You’ll just hurt your brain.”

  “Cool. And you just want to show God that free will for your kind is hot biscuits and gravy. Then why fuck with us mortals? What’s with all the temptation and corruption?”

  “Who said that was me? Oh yes, everyone.” Lucifer released Spyder’s arm and they sat on a stone bench on the edge of the square. “I have to take some responsibility for that. Millions of angels came with me when Father threw me out and changed the locks. I had to give them something to do.”

  “All those monks and nuns, Jesus in the desert, all the visions of all those righteous types, none of that was you?”

  “I’ll admit that I’ve had my hand in a tempting manifestation or two. I was an angry young man, lashing out at all God had created. But like you, little brother, I couldn’t help growing up a little.”

  Demons walked by them through the plaza, glancing furtively at the talking meat chatting with the ruler
of Hell. Tall, bile-colored women with snakes for hair and dressed in high-collared latex robes whispered to each other as they passed. Graceful, loping things, like mechanical praying mantises, craned a stalk eye or two at the conversation. A flock of living skeletons, human from the waist up, but birdlike from the waist down, stopped and stared at the men on the bench. The skeletons moved as a group, like pigeons, chittering down one of the side streets.

  “What about all those souls remodeling your den? What about the ones being tortured down here?”

  “Do you think I invited them here? We’ve been Heaven’s cesspit since time began. I’m just making use of the freeloaders. The tortures are just day-work for my less intelligent brethren. And truthfully, some souls are useless, not even fit for manual labor.”

  “I’m having a hard time with this poor, poor, pitiful me line, Count. Lucifer. What should I call you?”

  “Anything you want, just don’t call me late for dinner,” Lucifer said. He looked Spyder in the eye. “The truth will set you free. But it might also hurt your feelings: You see, humanity isn’t even on my radar. My quarrel is with Heaven, not you.”

  Spyder looked at Lucifer’s palace, thinking over everything he’d seen and heard. “You’re my friend. At least Count Non was. I don’t really know what to believe right now.”

  “Admit it. You want me to be a monster. Humanity has to find someone to blame for its crimes. The problem is that you never really believed Copernicus. You still think you’re the center of the universe and that all creation revolves around you.”

  “You’ve been practicing this speech for a while, haven’t you?”

  “I’ll give you an another example. The snake in the Garden of Eden?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It was just a snake. Humanity’s first real decision was to defy God. So was mine. That’s the reason I make you uncomfortable. We’re so much alike.” Lucifer leaned closer, speaking quietly. “In Heaven, my title was ‘The Tester’. I tempted and tormented mortals to test their faith, all with God’s blessing. Job, for instance. It’s a hard habit to break. But I always worked on the little things. Lust. Jealousy. Greed. Humanity didn’t need any help with the big sins. It was you who ate the apple and fell from grace. It was you when Carthage was raped and burned and the earth salted. It was you at Hiroshima and Wounded Knee and Auschwitz and at every lynching of every hapless sharecropper who dared to meet the eyes of a white woman.”