The Scarlet Gospels

  This was scarcely a promising environment, but still it found a way to grow, even prosper. On the slopes of the hills beneath her, long white grass swayed in some infernal wind and here and there bushes grew, the branches barbed and knuckled but bearing small colorless flowers. Her mind began to run wild once again. Where was this journey taking her? Did it even have a destination, or was she simply loosed from her body and fated to wander Hell for eternity?

  Regardless of her will or intent, the invisible tether continued to pull her toward its unknown purpose, and as it did her spirit began to sink toward the ground. In a few seconds she was moving inches above the level of the white grass. Some distance ahead of her was a small forest. The canopy of upper branches was intricately knotted, except for perhaps thirty or forty wild ones that had freed themselves and grew like sticks of black lightning. Large black birds were perched on several of the knotted branches, fighting with beaks and claws for the choicest spots. She was so distracted by the sight of their feuding that she didn’t notice the people emerging from the darkness beneath the trees until she was almost upon them.

  Then she smelled blood, and everything went white.

  12

  Dale, forced to the front by Harry, had been leading the way, but now, as they had barely stepped foot out of the forest, he turned and stared at his followers.

  “It’s close!” Dale said.

  “Keep walking, dickhead,” Lana said.

  “Harry, your friend’s being weird again!” said Caz.

  “We talked about this, Dale,” said Harry.

  “No, no, no,” said Dale in full southern charm mode. “It’s about to happen. You will all be very happy, I promise. And then when it’s over, dearest Lana, I do hope you’ll think better of me.”

  “You’re fucking creepy, man,” Lana said. “All I know is I’d feel a whole lot better if … I’m—” She stopped, abruptly changing her tone from irritation to bewilderment. “… What?” she said, her voice hushed as she lifted her injured hand to her face and examined the injury as though seeing it for the first time. Fresh blood was running from underneath the bandages. “I’ll be damned…” she said in the same soft voice. “Harry?”

  “I’m right here, Lana,” Harry said.

  “… I think I’m dead…” she said softly, followed immediately by a commanding, “Get out! Who the fuck … I will not get out.”

  “Don’t fight it, Lana,” Dale said. “It’s your blood. It’s how she found us!”

  “Fight what?” Harry said, approaching Dale, his tone serious. “What did you do?”

  “Whoa,” Caz said, tightening his grip on one of his knives. “Is this like a demonic possession thing? I’ll kill the little dude right now if I have to. Shit’s bad enough as it is.”

  “Everyone shut up. It’s me, Norma,” said Norma, from somewhere within Lana.

  “Who said you could hijack me?” Lana protested.

  “Norma?” Harry said, turning to Lana, his eyes narrowing in disbelief.

  “Yes, it’s me. I don’t know—” The words ceased as Lana shook her head again, determined to dislodge her unwelcome guest. “What the fuck is happening here?”

  “Lana. Let Norma speak,” Harry said.

  “Fuck off!” Lana snapped. “I’ve been possessed before. It’s not a feeling I like.”

  “She won’t stay long, honey,” Dale said. “I promise.”

  “Just let her say what she needs to say,” said Harry. “This is why we’re here.”

  “Okay,” Lana said, nodding as she drew a deep breath. “Just let me catch my bearings. I’ve never had a friendly ghost inside me.”

  “You’ve never had anything friendly inside you,” Caz said.

  “I’ll remember that next time you’re drunk and you can’t find a man.”

  Caz pursed his lips.

  “Oh, I am sure there’s always a willing man for you,” Dale said, eyeing Caz, a smile on his mischievous face.

  Caz, caught off guard, looked at Dale, flushed.

  “Okay,” Lana continued. “I’m ready. Let’s get it over with so we can get out of this shit hole and go back to the shit hole I’m familiar with.”

  She closed her eyes and let out a deep, deep breath. Then:

  “My goodness.”

  “Norma!” said Harry. “That really you?”

  “’Fraid so, Harry. Oh Lord, I think I might be dead. That bastard just finished beating the living shit out of me.”

  “Pinhead? Hands-on?”

  “Hands. Feet. Last time I saw him, he was stomping on my head.”

  “I’m going to fucking kill him.”

  “It’s a lovely thought, Harry. Thank you. But it’s not going to be easy. He’s not your ordinary sadomasochist from beyond the grave— Oh dear, I think it’s time to go already.”

  “Lana! Let her stay!”

  “It’s not Lana.… It would appear I’m not dead after all. My body’s wondering where the hell my mind went.”

  “Do you know where your body is?”

  “Yeah. Some big-ass building straight down this road. Looks like it was really fancy back in the day. But it’s falling apart, now. Listen to me, Harry. You all got to get out of here. I don’t want anyone dying on my account.”

  “No one’s dying. And we’re not leaving without you.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Harry. Listen to me. He’s too strong. Whatever you think you’ve got up your sleeve, it’s not going to be enough.”

  “I’m not going to leave you down here, Norma. Whatever happens, I’m going to—”

  Lana’s eyes opened, and there was a brief flash of confusion on her face; then it cleared and Lana said, “Is that it?”

  Harry sighed. “That’s it. Thank you, Lana. You were great.”

  “No problem,” she said, fluttering her eyes. “Just as long as she doesn’t plan on being a permanent tenant.”

  “She doesn’t.”

  “Is she dead? Because that’s what freaks me out, having a dead person in here with me.”

  “She’s alive,” Harry said. “For now.”

  “Oh, and Dale?” Lana said.

  “Hmm?” Dale said.

  “Next time, tell me what the fuck you need to do before you do it. You cut me again without me approving—even for a good reason like that one—I’ll rip your cock off.”

  * * *

  Norma woke into a place of pain; in her head, her stomach, her back, her legs, she could feel every blow.

  “Get her to her feet, Felixson. And hurry. We have business in the city. It’s time to put an end to that ridiculous regime. Better sooner, while they’re still arguing among themselves. Get her up, and if she won’t walk, then carry her.”

  “But Master, would it not be better to simply kill her?” Felixson said.

  The Priest stopped his preparations and fixed his icy gaze on Felixson. Without uttering another word, Felixson bowed his head in apology, repeatedly, and approached the still bloodied and bruised Norma, then leaned in close to her face and uttered a quiet monologue. Norma got a whiff of Felixson’s foul breath, which only added insult to her copious injuries.

  “I know you’re listening to me, you black cunt. I don’t know what he wants from you, but I don’t intend to carry you all the way to the city, so I’m going to make life a little easier for the both of us. I can’t heal you—I don’t have that much power—but I can give you an Epoidiatic Opiate. It will put the pain out of sight and mind, for a while.”

  “Will it … take … my wits?” Norma murmured through the blood in her mouth.

  “What do you care? Take what you’re given and be grateful.”

  He glanced away for a moment, just to confirm that he and his Epoidia weren’t being witnessed. They weren’t. The Priest had once again begun his preparation—an incantation of some sort—when Felixson began muttering an incantation of his own under his breath. He was good; she had to give him that. She felt the opiate spreading through her body, its warmth r
emoving all traces of pain.

  “That should do it,” he said.

  “Oh my Jesus, yes.”

  “Just remember to moan and sob every now and then. You’re supposed to be in pain, remember?”

  “Don’t worry; I’ll give him a good show.”

  “Get up!” Felixson then said loudly, grabbing Norma’s arm and pulling her to her feet.

  Norma let out a ragged series of cries and curses, but the fact was the incantation was so strong it had even taken away problems not caused by the demon: arthritis, stiffness, the general pain created from the business of being—all gone. She felt better than she had in years. So what if the Epoidia was only covering up the problem? She would happily live in this opiated state as long as she could. Next time she had a moment alone with him, she’d try to get him to teach her the trick he’d used, so she could give herself another fix of it when this one wore off.

  Then her thoughts turned to Harry and his gang of Harrowers. Norma didn’t like the idea of any of them, friends or not, traveling to this wretched place for her sake. But she knew that Harry wouldn’t take her advice. And she couldn’t blame him; were the roles reversed, she’d ignore his requests just as he, no doubt, was ignoring hers.

  “What are you thinking, woman?”

  The question came from the Cenobite.

  “I’m just nursing my wounds.”

  “Why nurse wounds you cannot feel?”

  “I don’t—”

  “I detest unconvincing lies. I know what he did,” the Priest said, pointing a gnarled finger at Felixson. “Never think, either of you, that I am not with you, even when you are not within eyesight.”

  “No, Lord…” Felixson said, his voice thinned with fear.

  “You disappoint me, Felixson. And you,” the Cenobite said to Norma, “you can stop that wretched hobbling. We have a long journey ahead. A plague fog now waits for us a quarter of a mile from the city’s limits. It will ensure that the damned are off the streets and in their homes, if homes they have.”

  Norma felt the demon’s scrutiny abandon her and, as he turned away, Felixson pushed past her.

  “God damn you,” he whispered to her. “Get behind me and grab hold of my shoulder. If we get separated I won’t wait for you.”

  “I’ll be sure to hold on, then,” Norma said.

  * * *

  “God. I fucking hate the country,” Lana said. She glanced around in disgust at the landscape, a hill lined with trees and shrubs all black in color. The grass, where it grew at all, was white and the dirt it grew in blacker even than the knotted branches of the trees.

  Harry suddenly stopped and stood alert, his ears pricked. The group fell silent, everyone listening for the sound of whatever it was that Harry seemed to hear.

  “Are those screams?” Caz said.

  “We are in Hell,” Lana remarked.

  Holding a hand up to silence his fellow infernal travelers, Harry climbed up to the top of the nearby slope. When he got to the top, he balked at the sight on the horizon.

  “Jesus,” he muttered. “That’s … big.”

  “Whatcha got there?” Lana said, climbing up to join him. “Whoa … is that—”

  “Fog?” Dale said, finishing Lana’s question for her. “In Hell?”

  “It’s moving,” Caz said, his head barely cresting the slope before the sight stopped him in his tracks. “And fast.”

  “Where’s it going?” Lana asked.

  “Nowhere. Look,” Harry said.

  The city, shrouded in fog as it was, looked vast, its buildings significantly more elegant and grandiose than Harry had expected. With its pale stone domes and its pillared plazas, this was clearly Hell’s Rome. The city been built on many hills, nearly two-thirds of which rose gently, displaying tier upon tier of immaculate buildings. Trees had been carefully positioned to set their knotted darkness off from the polished beauty of the buildings around which they grew. These trees were dwarfed, however, by even the humblest of buildings on the slope. The city’s architect had been a visionary, no doubt of that. There was nothing in Rome—nothing in any of the greatest cities in the world—that could hope to compare with the glories that had been brought into being here.

  Some had the simple authority of size: buildings fifty stories tall, the façades of which were not disfigured by so much as a single window. There were statues too, their heads and shoulders easily clearing even the tallest buildings. Whereas the statues of Rome were finely and faithfully crafted likenesses of Christian icons and men who’d ruled the city, the statues here were puzzles. Some were only vaguely recognizable as humanoid; others seemed to freeze in the blur of motion: a stone photograph of an unknown being caught in the throes of ecstasy, or agony, or both.

  And everywhere the laws of physics were casually defied: an immense building was held a hundred feet in the air or more by the two steep rows of steps at the front and the back; a trio of pyramids, their squares intricately inscribed, were built so as to seem caught by a seismic jolt that had thrown two of them into the air and left the third supporting them by only the slenderest of means, corner to corner, edge to edge.

  And nestled amid it all was a greenish fog that sat, unmoving, in the expansive shantytown in a trench directly in front of the city. The fog cast its greenish hue onto a band of buildings from the monolithic structures close to the summit down to the high walls that marked the limits of the city proper as it sat, willfully motionless, over a portion of the mass of tents and crude shacks and animals that formed the chaotic fringe around the city limits. It was this place, this vast shantytown, that was the source of the screams. This bizarre fog had seemingly settled upon this place, and it was apparent that those who had failed to find their out of its haze were in terrible agony.

  “Who’s got the best eyes?” Harry said. “It’s not me. I can see people moving down there, but they’re a blur.”

  “They’re better staying that way,” said Caz.

  “What’s happening?”

  “They’re fucking insane or something,” said Lana.

  “They’re running around”—Caz shook his head—“beating their heads against the walls. And, oh God, there’s a guy … oh Jesus Christ—”

  “Are they human?”

  “Some of them,” Dale said. “Most look like demons to me.”

  “Yeah,” Lana said. “And human beings can’t make noises like that.”

  It was true. The cacophony, which continued to grow louder, was a sickening din—a befouling stew of noise that was beyond the capabilities of the human lungs and throat. The near-death shrieks were mingled with the noises that sounded like an engine or machine in the final phase of self-destruction, gears shredding, and motors shrieking as they tore themselves apart.

  “This is more like it,” Harry said. “Hell was starting to disappoint me.”

  “Don’t put that out there, man,” Caz said. “We don’t need any more bad vibes than we’ve already got. Or … I dunno, maybe you do.” He looked at Harry, who was squinting to try to get a clearer view of what was happening. “You can’t wait to get down there, can you?”

  “I want this over with, Caz.”

  “You sure that’s all?”

  “What else could there be?” Harry said, keeping his eyes trained on the spectacle.

  “Stop looking at the atrocities for two fucking seconds, Harold. This is me. Caz. You know that I’m following you all the way down into this mess no matter what, right? I’m here to get Norma, together, and I ain’t leaving without her. But I need you to look me in the fucking eyes right now and tell me the truth. And don’t do it for me. Do it for you.”

  Harry turned to face his friend and uttered a single defiant, “What?”

  “Are you enjoying this?” Caz asked.

  Harry’s face fell. After a moment, he opened his mouth to speak. That’s when Lana shouted, “I can’t take it!”

  Caz and Harry turned to see Lana drop down onto the ground, her arms crossed ov
er the top of her head as though to forcibly hold in her sanity. Caz went on his haunches beside her.

  “It’s okay,” Caz said. “We’ll be okay.”

  “How can you say that? Look at them! Look what this place is doing to them. And they live here! We don’t stand a chance.”

  Harry sat down in the long white grass a yard from them, tuning out Caz’s placating condolences, as he turned his attention once more to the chaos within the Pit. Harry knew nothing of the poor creatures whose screams rose heavenward and more than likely fell on deaf ears; perhaps they deserved the agonies that had been set upon them. Perhaps not. Either way, their supplications brought him into an unwelcome headspace and they mingled with the rest of the assaults on his senses—the penetrating stench of sulfur mixed with burning flesh, the tattoos beating a wild refrain on his body in a way that brought him once more to that never-distant-enough night. He could hear the demon’s voice in his head, even now, a world away.

  Spit. Harry heard the word tearing at the inside of his skull. How he wished he could have done something differently that night. If he had, then maybe he’d be able to shake the feeling that he was now exactly where he belonged—where he’d always belonged—in Hell.

  “Whatcha thinking about?” Dale’s voice cut through his thoughts like a knife. His words were an anchor wrapped in innocence.

  “I’m trying to work out how we fit together,” Harry said. “Why we’re here.”

  Dale laughed. “You don’t have the first idea, do you?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “Ah. That’s the big question, isn’t it?”

  “You already know.”

  “I sure do.”

  “Care to let me in on the secret?”

  “Easy: watching isn’t the same as seeing.”

  Harry laughed. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “I heard it in a dream.”

  Apparently Dale assumed the conversation had reached its end here, because without uttering another word he kissed Harry on top of his head and sauntered away. Caz, meanwhile, had somehow coaxed Lana to her feet and was keeping the city at her back.