Even Hell Has Knights (Hellsong) (33 page)

“Men often find the whys of the Universe to be opaque: If God is Love, why Polio? But I’ve found that the greatest of our philosophical questions are not difficult at all. They only appeared so, since we had always supposed that it was we who were the answer.”

—
Endymion

“Don’t shit where you eat.”

—
Ares

Benson, where’s he gone?

Carlisle’s wound bled freely. It had sapped his strength, and he had fallen—so now he crawled.

I have been dying for years.

His mind, unguarded, began remembering truths he had long denied.

He collapsed completely.

It hadn’t always been this way. He hadn’t always been damned. He used to have angels over his head. He remembered lying like this next to Anna McNamara in an Alabama cornfield. They weren’t married, and she needed to stay a virgin, so he sodomized her. He didn’t know what he was doing, not really. He was just a kid. No one had ever sat him down and told him in Bible school what sodomy was.

Except he knew.

He knew damn well he shouldn’t have been doing it. He didn’t even need the Good Book to tell him that. And it wasn’t like he stopped it there.

Stay awake. The Infidel is close behind me. I must keep going.

He caught his breath, shook his head to clear his memories and conscience, and then continued
to crawl.

He looked back and saw his trail, left like a slug behind him, stretching back the five thousand or so feet to whe
re he had first fallen, to where the Infidel had stabbed him.

Impossible.

“Can you hear me?” The woman’s voice was deep and sultry, the accent unrecognizable. “Can you hear me?”

Anna?

He meant to call it off with Anna McNamara, but he was going to make sure he did it the right way. He invited her over to his father’s farm and took her for a walk, right by that cornfield where he’d penetrated her and dirtied his manhood. He told her his mind, then. He told her exactly what God wanted for them.

She understood.

She told him how right he was, how strong he was. How she wished she could fight the sins of the flesh like he could. He was going to teach her. He was going to help save her soul. He meant to. He really did.

That
time he took her in the cunt.

She bled a muddy river, just like the one he was bleeding now.

He clutched at the stone as he tried to drag himself forward. He felt the grain of the stone slide beneath his slick fingertips.

No, Anna. You did it to yourself. You shouldn’t have tricked me into fucking you.

The Infidel was coming. Of course the Infidel was coming. Carlisle hadn’t stabbed himself in the side. But it was a woman, a shade, who approached instead. She stood over him for a few moments before finally kneeling next to him. She reached out and touched his shoulder. He found her touch comforting.

“I need you to remember for me, Carlisle.” The low feminine voice invaded his dreams. “I need for you to let me know what happened. Nod if you can hear me.”

He’d betrayed himself back then, and he knew it. Any fool could see that. It wasn’t too long before all the fools did. He was a fornicator. His father was furious when he found out. The man beat Carlisle’s ass good, too, wailing on him long through the night.

“My boy wants to knock some girl up, that’s fine,” his father said. “He wants to knock some girl up
and
sit down. That shit ain’t happening.”

Carlisle saw their eyes on him at church. Saw how the mothers hovered near their daughters when he was close. Saw how Meghan Thomson, the pretty little thing from his youth group, looked at him as if he was some kind of trash. Good girls wouldn’t talk to him anymore. Only the sluts wanted anything to do with him.

Sluts like Anna McNamara, and she wanted him something fierce. She called him all the time. Saying she was sorry. Saying that they would wait until they got married to do it again. But he knew what that
slut
wanted. He wasn’t falling for that shit again.

You
can’t ever get that back, Joe Carlisle. Once you give that away to some no good whore you can’t ever give it to your wife. You can be a born again Christian, but there ain’t no such thing as a born again virgin. You do it once, and you’re a fornicator
.
A good for nothing, dirty-ass-motherfuckin’-fornicator.

Fornicator? Was that even a bad thing?

He hadn’t cared, right? Fuck them. He didn’t need them. He needed Jesus. He prayed all night. He prayed all day. He came to Pastor Burnak and laid it all out for him, stripping his soul as bare as babe at baptism. He didn’t hold no punches. He was a sinner. He was fallen. He was of the flesh. But oh my, sweet Lord on high, Jesus Christ, he was going to get better. He was going to reform. He was going to pray and repent. He was going to give God his whole heart and beg his righteous forgiveness.

But it wasn’t like everyone else could see that. They couldn’t know that he’d been the receptacle of divine mercy.

To them he was still a fornicator.

He’d halfway made it to redemption when Anna came to him. She’d been missing her period, she said. She’d been to the doctors, she said. It was dangerous for her to have the child, she said. They were going to give her an abortion.

An abortion?

She was going to go inside that body of hers to
her godless womb and destroy that poor innocent soul that lay helpless within her? That kid hadn’t asked for its father to sin. Abortion? Hell no. Not if he had anything to say about it. If God hadn’t wanted that child to be born, he wouldn’t have had that child made. It was a sin to kill. She was going to be a murderer. If she died with that baby, then she died. That’s the way God wanted it, right? The doctors, they knew all about science and evolution and all that bullshit, but they didn’t have a God damn clue about the important things. About how God had a plan for them all. About how He was going to take care of Anna McNamara if she trusted Him. About how this world was nothing. This world was shit. Hell, they were all nothing. They might as well all be good for nothing, dirty-ass-motherfuckin’-fornicators
.
They had all fallen. Didn’t those doctors know that?

“They can be real book smart,” his preacher told him, “but they don’t have no common sense.”

Abortion?
Abortion!
You sinful no good
slut
. How dare you? She was going to have that child. She’d convinced him to do that dirty deed as surely as Eve had convinced Adam. She’d made him the object of hate and teasing at Lewis County High. He was through with sinning. They weren’t going to be murderers. He’d given himself to Jesus-motherfuckin’-Christ, didn’t she know? She was going to have that baby. She sure as hell was. She was going to have it just like God wanted her to.

They kept her at his father’s farm because Anna’s mother hadn’t wanted to hear any of it. She wanted to follow the doctor’s advice. She was just like them doctors. She knew a shit ton of shit but didn’t know a goddamned thing about common sense. Eternity was forever, motherfucker. Even a good for nothing
fornicator
knew that. She’d sent the police, but the Lewis county police department knew better. They weren’t going to take part of killing no baby.

They’d done the right thing. He knew that. They’d made the good choice. Even she knew it by the end. He knew she did. She didn’t regret it one bit. Not even as she was screaming on the operating table while the blood gushed out from between her legs in muddy rivers. Not even as the doctors swarmed all over her, trying to save her life. He’d seen the baby that came out of her, all three pounds of dead and soulless flesh.

He’d done the right thing, right? He’d followed the Bible, right? Them doctors didn’t know shit.

He could look into the eyes of Anna’s mother. He wasn’t wrong. He hadn’t killed her daughter. It was just Anna’s time to go. God had taken her. Better her daughter’s life than her daughter’s soul, right?

He could say that. He could go home and sleep at night.

Sure he could.

He wasn’t going to Hell, because Jesus owned his soul. He didn’t have anything to worry about. He’d read the Good Book.

Except he had gone to Hell.

He hadn’t paid enough attention, he knew now. He’d missed the couple of things that you could not do. He didn’t know what they were then, but he’d found out after he died.

“You can’t deny Christ,” Maab had told him. “After you’ve accepted Him, you can’t let
Him go, or he’s gone forever. You can’t write blasphemy, either. Do it and you are forever damned.”

Says so, right in the God damned Book.

He’d known it, or should have known it. It was his fault for not paying enough attention in Sunday school.

He’d broken both rules with a single sentence that he’d doodled in his senior year English book while studying on the porch by his father’s cornfield.

Does God exist?

But for all the bullshit that field in Alabama had held for him it had everything that he wanted now. After all, he hadn’t stabbed himself in the God damned side.

He’d vowed it would be different in Hell. He wouldn’t be godless here. He’d do right, finally.

He couldn’t let himself die. Not again. Not when Maab had given him a task. Had given him someone to rescue. He only hoped the Infidel hadn’t gotten to the rest of Maab’s men, too.

Nod if you can hear me.

He’d fallen unconscious, he realized. He felt his own cold blood on his cheek. He nodded.

“Maab?” he asked weakly.

“My name is Li
lith, Carlisle. I’m here to help you.”

She was circling him slowly, step by step. He fought to keep looking at her, but lifting his head from the endless pools of his own blood was too much for him.

“Christ, too,” he mumbled into the muddy liquid. “He was stabbed in the side.”

“Yes he was, my sweet.”

“I can’t stand.”

“Yes you can, my sweet. You need to come to me. Can’t you hear me singing?”

“The boy,” Carlisle said. “I need to save the boy.”

“Come find me, Carlisle.”

“How?”

“This place isn’t real, remember. You died again. We’re in the same room, but we’re not close enough yet. Listen to me. Listen to me sing.”

I’ve heard this song.

Carlisle pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the blood that trailed out of his side.

I’ve known this song! I heard it on the wind! The boy’s mother! The song of angels!

He followed the music.

“I hate waiting,” Ellen said.

She sat alone with Rick, staring down at her plate. She felt guilty for not eating her helping of the dyitzu meat. Rick had seared it on the battery powered hotplates and added a powdered spice he said came from ground down hound bones. It had been garnished with hungerleaves and soaked in knowledge fruit vinegar. Her devilwheat meal had been sweetened with honey and spiced with some powder that was unknown to her. It tasted spectacular, it really did.

She just wasn’t hungry.

Her eyes wandered across the table to Rick.

His wooden spoon was working his own devilwheat meal, but there were long pauses between his bites. Most of his meat was untouched. He had cut some of it into peculiarly small pieces.

“It’s worse this time,” he said.

It must be worse for him. I barely know them. Galen and Turi are his entire life.

“Because they’re in the Carrion?”

“Morbid girl, why would you ask me such questions?”

She looked back down at her plate. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said shortly. “Yes. It’s worse because they’re in the Carrion. Turi would tell you that I don’t sleep well when Galen’s gone. Even when it’s just for a couple of days. Even when Hell is all but empty of devils. It’s stupid of me to worry about things I can’t control.”

He let his spoon go. It clattered against the marble plate, its head still buried in the meal.

Ellen smiled. “Galen told you that it was stupid to worry, didn’t he?”

Rick laughed and leaned back in his chair. “How did you know?”

“Sounds like him, not you,” she said. “And because he told me the same thing.”

Rick massaged the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. She watched him intently for a moment and then tried to finish her food. Chewing took forever. She managed to swallow a few more bites.

This is hopeless, I’ll never finish it all.

“Does Galen hate me?” she asked.

“No,” he said suddenly. “Why would you think that?”

“He seems so, well, mean, I guess.”

Rick shook his head and smiled. “He just hates women, is all. He likes you more than most. When he talks to Turi about you, it’s always in a good way.”

I think I love that boy.

It occurred to her that she was just being stupid. She was a lost, lonely little girl, who, after being thrust into Hell, fell in love with the first young man that she’d run across. But feelings were feelings, she knew. She had them, and there was no use denying them.

“Why does Galen hate women? Did he love one?”

Rick laughed aloud. “Galen could be impressed by a woman, or want a woman. But I can’t imagine him respecting a girl enough to love her. It’s something I try very hard to protect Turi against. Galen is always filling his head with misogynistic bullshit, even though we both agreed that wasn’t the way we wanted to raise him.”

“But why?” she asked. “Why does he feel that way? There must be some reason.”

“We were all raised at different times, and in different places. People don’t age in Hell, and Galen is very, very old. He doesn’t have much use for women as partners. Doesn’t have much use for me, either, come to think of it. His world is a cold, emotionless place, full of duty. One time, when Turi was very young, I asked him not to go out hunting. I asked him what I was supposed to do if he didn’t come back.”

Ellen leaned forward. “Well, what did he say?”

“He told me that when my favorite pot has broken, to remember that it was just a pot.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? What a cruel thing to say, that people are only as important pots.”

“It’s just how Galen thinks. People and things have purposes. His purpose was to hunt and gather food. To protect and feed Turi. If he died, I was supposed to go and find another hunter. Another protector for the boy.”

And you would have, too. You would have found someone else to help raise Turi. But now, if they don’t come back, you won’t have anyone to raise.

“They’re supposed to be back by now, aren’t they?”

Rick nodded. “But Galen can take care of himself. It’s always him that’s out. He’s such a good fighter, Ellen. You have no idea. I know when he’s gone that I’m probably more likely to die at home than he is in the wilds. I know it, but I don’t feel it. This time it’s different, because he’s in the Carrion. This time he really can die. And worse. This time Turi’s out there with him.”

He got up, as slowly as an old man might, and moved over towards the wall. He pulled a lever, and the battery began to hum. Ellen watched the moving gears. Slowly, bit by bit, the battery stone began to rise.

He sat back down at the table and looked at his food. She reached out and touched his hand.

“They are coming back, right?” she asked.

“They might be unscathed. Maybe they have seen a mighty devil, or a lot of them, and are lying low. Maybe someone’s injured. They might have to wait for him to heal before they return. There are traps in the Carrion. A passage may have closed behind them, and they may have to work their way back.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I have to ask this. I just don’t know. Is any of that likely? I mean, are they dead?”

“Who knows? It’s not fair,” Rick managed. “Turi shouldn’t have gone out there with him.”

Rick will be all alone.

“Would you move into Harpsborough?” she asked.

The idea seemed silly to her as soon as she said it. She couldn’t imagine Rick, or Galen, or even Turi, living in Harpsborough. They were free people. It wouldn’t be right for the Citizens to order them around, or take their goods, or keep them out of the Fore.

Not to mention those Citizens won’t let anyone join them now anyway.

But surely they’d let Rick in.

He shook his head. “I couldn’t live there. Better to be alone.”

This really is Hell.

“I’ll stay with you, Rick.”

He smiled. “Thank you, you’re a sweetheart. I’d be happy to have you.”

She took careful stock of the tortured man before her. He was in many ways the opposite of Galen. Galen was built for this place. Galen did not care who lived and who died. Galen could watch his son die in the most gruesome way and fail to blink. Why would he blink? That’s just one more instant where he’d be vulnerable to an attack.

Rick’s brow was furrowed, his eyes red. He cut the dyitzu meat into a few more small pieces. He was able to chew one and swallow it.

I’m feeling what you’re feeling. I know how it is.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“No. I can’t even use Galen’s stupid philosophy. Turi was the point, he was the duty. Why get another pot if I’ve lost the thing it was supposed to hold?”

He shoved his fork back down into the tray.

“What would Galen do if you and Turi had died?” Ellen asked.

Rick thought about this for a second, his face horribly serious.

“He’d try and find another boy. You see, Turi is supposed to do something. Something very important.”

“I’ll help you,” Ellen said suddenly. “We’ll have a child, if you want. I’ll help you raise another Turi.”

Oh God, what did I just say?

She hadn’t meant to offer herself as a wife, or a lover. Or to replace the man’s son. She looked at him worriedly, waiting for him to get angry.

But Rick just nodded.

Didn’t he hear what I said?

“It’s useless to try and eat this,” Rick said.

He got up from the table, picked up his tray and walked over to the counter. “What do you know?” he asked, fishing around in the supply closet. “A pot.”

He started spooning his food into the urn.

Isn’t he going to say anything?

“You finished?” he asked her.

“Yeah,” she stood up and handed him her plate.

Of course he won’t get angry. He took my words as they were meant.

This was Hell, and because of that Ellen decided that Galen must in some way be right. Without a purpose, or a duty, you would just go mad. The trick was finding a duty worthy of all this suffering.

But I don’t have to worry about finding that. They already have the duty picked out for me. I just have to trust this family and trust that their goal is a worthy one. I just have to make their cause my own.

She didn’t know if the thoughts actually made her feel better or not. There was still this vast empty pit in her chest that opened up whenever she thought of Turi.

But now it’s different. It hurts just as much, but now I can still move. I can still do things. There is a reason for me to breathe.

Rick’s shoulders were hunched. He seemed to have been exhausted from the short chore of packing away their food.

And I have to keep breathing, that way Hell can go on hurting me.

Chelsea sat as one of the four wealthiest Citizens. They had taken down the pulpit and installed instead a table for the main judges to sit at. The forty-five remaining members of the Fore filled out the Citizen pews. The Infidel Friend stood defiant in the central aisle, surrounded by his hecklers, looking up at his judges. The shadow of one of Father Klein’s crosses fell over his head. Chelsea couldn’t help but have a little bit of respect for this man.

Oh, what a waste. If only the Infidel hadn’t got you.

To her right was Father Klein. To her left was the empty chair where Michael would soon be seated. Beyond that, Mancini and Copperfield. She and the others, it had been agreed, were the ones who were to ask questions. Then the entire Fore would vote on his guilt or innocence.

It would be Michael, alone, who would then decide the depth of the punishment.

As if it would be any vote but guilty. As if I don’t already know what Michael will do to him.

But she tried to keep an open mind. She tried to convince herself to be a fair questioner.

The Father is afraid that his death will bring more. He says the Infidel Friend are both numerous and resilient.

But Michael would be the one to make the punishment. They could always say to the Infidel’s men that they had voted him guilty, expecting some lesser sentence. Michael would be the one the Citizens would blame, but who knew if the Infidel’s men would buy that excuse? Who knew if they’d even care?

Michael emerged from the chambers where Father Klein slept. From the chambers where the spider corpse and eggs were kept.

The spider that Michael killed. Could he fight an Infidel Friend? Is he gambling that he can?

The First Citizen wore his best poker face. She watched him descend into his seat. In his right hand he held a stone orb made of marble. He slammed it down against the table.

Silence.

“You seem fearless,” Michael commented to the man.

His words had been not been spoken loudly, but they were quite audible in the quiet room.

The Infidel Friend’s response also rang out clearly. “Most honored judge, I fear you greatly.”

Lip service. If he’s afraid, then Aaron’s in love with me.

“I warn you,” Michael said, “don’t be insolent. This is no game. Your manners here may well determine whether you live or die.”

“Of this I am aware, most honored judge.”

Then act like it.

Chelsea watched Michael purse his lips. He absently rolled the stone ball about on the table before continuing. “I have questions which I must ask you in order to make sure that the safety of this village is maintained. Are you willing to answer such questions?”

“It would be a privilege to give you information that might help your brave people, most honored judge.”

Is he deliberately trying to goad Michael?

“Why did you travel to Harpsborough?”

“I must protest the question, your honor. I had no intention of traveling here. I was dragged here while terribly wounded. My arrival was not a matter of my choice.”

“Don’t fill my ears with shit, Infidel Friend—”

“Cris.”