Infernal Angel (7 page)
Authors: Edward Lee
Then a voice seemed to answer her regret.
The voice said: “Yes, you will.”
Cassie’s eyes widened in the dark. So now she was hearing voices?
Makes sense,
she thought.
People in psych wards hear voices, don’t they? Crazy people ... hear voices ...
Makes sense,
she thought.
People in psych wards hear voices, don’t they? Crazy people ... hear voices ...
“But you’re not crazy, Cassie,” the voice returned. It was light and feminine; it even sounded kind of perky. The voice was in her ears, as anyone’s voice would be, anyone else who might be in the room, which presented a problem, of course, because there
was
no one else in the room. At least, though, she knew it wasn’t a voice in her head, like a hallucination, and Cassie knew this too: she wasn’t talking to herself. What she was hearing was clearly not her own voice.
was
no one else in the room. At least, though, she knew it wasn’t a voice in her head, like a hallucination, and Cassie knew this too: she wasn’t talking to herself. What she was hearing was clearly not her own voice.
“Get up.”
“What?” Cassie dared answer.
“Go on, get up. Don’t be afraid. Go to your sink and turn on the water.”
Now Cassie chuckled at herself. “I guess it’s settled. I
am
crazy. Some girl just told me to go to the sink and turn on the water. What does she want me to do? Wash my face? Brush my teeth?” But all she did was shrug. If she was crazy, what did it matter?
am
crazy. Some girl just told me to go to the sink and turn on the water. What does she want me to do? Wash my face? Brush my teeth?” But all she did was shrug. If she was crazy, what did it matter?
She got up and went to the little sink beside the toilet. She turned on the water.
“This’ll sound a little weird but now I’m going to transfer my image to you.”
“You’re right,” Cassie said. “That sounds a little weird.”
“Cup your hands under the water.”
Why not?
Maybe it was just a dream. She was an Etheress, she’d literally been to Hell and back. Plus all the psych drugs she’d had to take during her teen years?
I’m entitled to have weird dreams. That’s all this is.
Maybe it was just a dream. She was an Etheress, she’d literally been to Hell and back. Plus all the psych drugs she’d had to take during her teen years?
I’m entitled to have weird dreams. That’s all this is.
“It’s not a dream.”
Cassie cupped her hands under the running water, whistling “Living Dead Girl,” by Rob Zombie.
“Keep the water in your hands and step away.”
Cassie did so.
The voice seemed pleased. “Now. Look in the water. Do it from an angle, don’t look down into the water directly.
Make it so you don’t see your own reflection.”
Boy,
Cassie thought,
I can’t wait to tell R.J. and Dr. Morse about this. They’ll love
it. Nevertheless, Cassie did as instructed. She looked at the water in her cupped hands as some of it dribbled through her fingers.
Cassie thought,
I can’t wait to tell R.J. and Dr. Morse about this. They’ll love
it. Nevertheless, Cassie did as instructed. She looked at the water in her cupped hands as some of it dribbled through her fingers.
Cassie stood very still. There was a reflection in the water: a face. Not her face but the face of a pretty girl with long, flowing snow-white hair. The hair looked as though it were submerged in water itself, floating around the girl’s head as though she were lying back in a bathtub or pool. Cassie could make out this face with an alarming detail; she could even see the girl’s eyes, so beautiful yet so strange. The irises of her eyes were beige, surrounded by the thinnest rim of bright violet.
Yeah,
Cassie told herself.
This is a dream, that’s all.
Cassie told herself.
This is a dream, that’s all.
“Hi, Cassie,” the face said, smiling softly. “My name is Angelese.”
Cassie’s lips trembled before she could respond. “Yeah? Well ... that’s fine but...”
“What am I doing in the water in your hands?”
“Well, yeah. For starters.”
“It’s just a basic Transference Charm. All you need is a medium that’s pure—snow, prism light, running water.
You could even do this.”
“I don’t think so,” Cassie said, still not believing she was having a conversation with a reflection.
“Sure, you could. You’re an Etheress.”
Cassie could hear her heart thudding. What should she ask next?
When someone else’s reflection is talking
to
you
—
in a psych ward, no less-what exactly do you say?
When someone else’s reflection is talking
to
you
—
in a psych ward, no less-what exactly do you say?
“I’m a Caliginaut, Cassie,” the reflection—Angelese—said next. “I know you don’t know what that is, and I don’t have much time. The charm only lasts a minute or so. So I’ll make it quick. I’m from an Order of the Seraphim, a very special order. Those from my order willingly descend from the Rapture.”
“Seraphim,”
Cassie repeated the word. “You’re a—”
Cassie repeated the word. “You’re a—”
“I’m an angel,” Angelese said, and suddenly her face began to stress as if in pain. “I’ve been sent here to help you.”
“Help me do what?” Cassie asked, eyes blooming.
“I’m here to help you find the other Deadpass. I’m here to take you back into Hell—”
The water in her hands had turned to blood, and Angelese’s words barely registered when suddenly Cassie was deafened by a high, shrill noise that filled the padded room like a fire alarm. Cassie thudded to the floor as if knocked down. The blood in her hand flew away and spattered the canvas walls, and that’s when she realized that the sound that was piercing her eardrums—that high, shrill, alarm-like noise—was actually Angelese screaming.
Chapter Three
(I)“Heydon, I think,” Officer Cooper said behind the wheel of Dannelleton PD Mobile Unit 208. “Cassie Heydon, er, Cassandra or something.”
They’d just passed the little-talked-about Dannelleton Clinic, where said Cassandra or something was currently undergoing psychiatric evaluation on a pre-trial order for an arson charge. And here were two Dannelleton cops speeding back to town on a suspicious fire call that was starting to sound a lot like arson. Correction, they weren’t speeding anymore; Cooper, who had a penchant for pegging the speedometer at any reasonable opportunity had by now slowed down to ten miles per hour due to the sudden limited visibility.
Ryan poked his head out the shotgun window. “Jesus, you’re right. It’s not fog, it’s smoke, and—” He tensed at a sudden fit of coughing. “And that stink? It’s ten times worse now.”
Cooper could smell it too; he could even taste it as his face wrinkled up. It was a smell like meat cooking, but not good meat. Rotten meat. Like the time when he was a kid back in Brackard’s Point and they’d set that dead-for-four-days German shepherd they’d found at the dump on fire.
The most atrocious stench ...
“Dispatcher said west end, right?” Ryan was peering out, seeing essentially nothing now.
“Yeah, and we’re almost there ... I think.” Cooper had had to decelerate to a crawl by now. The smoke had thickened to the point that it was like driving through pea soup. Ryan keyed the radio mike again. “Still dead,” he said. “When was the last time that happened? Sure, the fuckin’ phones go out every now and then, but when was the last time the radio went out?”
“Never,” Cooper muttered, then stomped the brakes and shouted “Fuck!” when a sudden rapid thumping began to beat on the windshield. Both cops fumbled for their guns until they noted the old man leaning over at the open driver’s window.
“What the blamed hail’s goin’ on?” his cratchety voice asked them.
“Sir, do you know where the fire is?” Cooper asked.
“Hail no, but there sure as shit’s a fire somewhere.” The old man stood in pajamas, his dentures were out, which lengthened his lined face. “Where’s the blamed fire department ? How come there ain’t no phone service? I can’t even get the local news ‘cos the blammed
television
ain’t workin’.”
television
ain’t workin’.”
“Hey, pappy, pipe down a minute and let me ask you something,” Ryan said next, squinting over. Now the smoke was even seeping into the car, tendrils of a sickly greenish-gray. “Our dispatcher told us that there were complaints of people screaming out here. You hear anyone screaming?”
The old man needn’t answer. In the distance, like fog-horns sounding across the bay, they could hear it: a uniphon of moans, muttering, and screams.
Cooper said: “This is four shades of fucked up.”
“It’s coming from the town square near as I can tell,” the old man offered.
Ryan checked the cylinder of his service piece, then checked his speed-loaders. “Wait here, keep trying the dispatcher,” he said to Cooper. “I’m gonna check this out.”
Cooper just gulped and nodded.
Ryan got out. “Come on, pappy. Show me what the fuck’s going on,” and from there the two men ventured forward into the souplike smoke. Ryan could see through periodic breaks, and his suspicions were validated when he first heard the crackling and then spotted the shifting. Bright blossoms of what could only be fire.
“See that there, sonny?” The old man pointed. “Yeah, I see it,” Ryan grated back. It was hard to even talk now, from the malodorous soot that seemed to be lining the inside of his mouth. But, yes, he could see it: a line of well-appointed rowhouses, divided by intermittent shops along Main Street, all aflame. Some of the fires had spread across the roofs leaving frameworks of radiant, crackling orange, while other buildings poured flame from their blown-out windows. Ryan wasn’t sure—in fact, he convinced himself that it was just an optical illusion—but in one of the windows he thought he saw people running about in horror, dressed in sheets of flame.
“Must’ve been an earthquake or something,” Ryan speculated, “or some big-ass gas-line rupture,” forgetting that Dannelleton was all electric and had no natural gas service. “And now that we’ve established that there’s a fire, where in the
fuck
is the fire department?” Hence, the next disturbing observation. Main Street was being devoured by fires yet he heard no sirens, detected no evidence of an emergency-service response. The only thing that he did continue to hear were the screams, some low, some high, some tortured and barely human anymore in their rubato-like trait that grimly made Ryan think of people being burned alive.
fuck
is the fire department?” Hence, the next disturbing observation. Main Street was being devoured by fires yet he heard no sirens, detected no evidence of an emergency-service response. The only thing that he did continue to hear were the screams, some low, some high, some tortured and barely human anymore in their rubato-like trait that grimly made Ryan think of people being burned alive.
“There!” The old man pointed again. “Ain’t that a bitch!”
It was a bitch. Now Ryan squinted through more stinking murk to actually see the fire department. Flames trailed around the sign on the front wall—DANNELLETON FIRE UNIT 1—and the great plate glass windows near the entrance had blown out, vomiting more fire. When the entrance door did in fact burst open, a man staggered out, wailing. There seemed to be some clumplike thing on his back, something that moved, but how could that be? It must be just an air-pack, or responder supplies in a backpack. The man, continuing to wail, disappeared into smoke. Ryan couldn’t help but think, however:
What was that
...
thing on his back?
What was that
...
thing on his back?
The station’s three open bays belched flame too, and the town’s three proud fire trucks were easily seen burning. The entire building was engulfed now, and that slight but definite irregularity did enforce itself into Ryan’s mind, given his own state of distress at the moment.
The entire building was made of brick. Brick didn’t burn, or at least it wasn’t supposed to as far as Ryan understood.
This is all fucked up,
the cop cogitated.
What am I gonna do?
What
could
he do? He and Cooper were just two cops who had no communications, no fire-fighting gear, and, obviously, no fire department. Meanwhile, it looked like the entirety of beautiful downtown Dannelleton was burning up.
the cop cogitated.
What am I gonna do?
What
could
he do? He and Cooper were just two cops who had no communications, no fire-fighting gear, and, obviously, no fire department. Meanwhile, it looked like the entirety of beautiful downtown Dannelleton was burning up.
And still, the screams persisted, but they were fading.
Ryan turned back to the old man—“Hey, pappy, you got a—”
The old man lay convulsing at Ryan’s feet. His toothless mouth gasped, opening and closing like the mouth on a fish dying on a pier. His bony fingers felt around at his abdominal area, and that was a big problem.
His abdominal area had been shorn open.
He’d been disemboweled in only the few moments that Ryan had been looking toward the town square. His fingers were desperately feeling around inside the evacuated cavity, feeling for innards that were no longer there.
“We’ll get a fortune for these at the gut-diviner’s,” a sifting voice proclaimed with some enthusiasm. The voice was replied to: “You bet! Fresh guts!”
Ryan wasn’t sure. He was
hoping,
in fact, that he’d inhaled too much smoke and the reaction was causing hallucinations. Nonetheless, he wasn’t sure but he thought he observed two things: One, the voices he’d just heard were not human; and, Two, several squat figures had just shuffled off together in the smoke. The figures seemed to be carrying piles of something ropy and wet in their clawed hands, and the figures seemed to have horns.
hoping,
in fact, that he’d inhaled too much smoke and the reaction was causing hallucinations. Nonetheless, he wasn’t sure but he thought he observed two things: One, the voices he’d just heard were not human; and, Two, several squat figures had just shuffled off together in the smoke. The figures seemed to be carrying piles of something ropy and wet in their clawed hands, and the figures seemed to have horns.
Not trumpets or bugles. No, not those kinds of horns.
Horns coming out of their foreheads.
When Ryan got back to Dannelicton PD Mobile Unit 208, his partner’s previous words echoed in his head:
Yeah, this is four shades of fucked up,
and the impression was trebled when he actually got a good look at his partner, who remained behind the wheel of the cruiser.
Yeah, this is four shades of fucked up,
and the impression was trebled when he actually got a good look at his partner, who remained behind the wheel of the cruiser.
What Ryan saw was a big problem. Cooper was quietly shuddering in place, stooped over. His skin seemed wizened now, as though something vampiric had drained a good deal of his bodily fluids. But it was no vampire that had attached itself, via its hooklike mouth, at the back of Cooper’s neck. It was a species of parasite known not in this world but in another as
Democephalus exsanguinius,
referred to less technically as a Caco-Tick. Cannulas slid out of its mandibular cavity to pierce the back of Cooper’s neck and slip up into the skull through the carotid inlets and then drain all of the victim’s spinal fluid. Once digested, the cannulas then moved on to the
corpus callosum
where they would spend the next few hours leisurely sucking all of Cooper’s blood out through his brain. By now the Caco-Tick had swollen nicely, to something about the size of a pineapple. The parasite’s vein-lined blood reservoir quivered as it continued to fill.
Democephalus exsanguinius,
referred to less technically as a Caco-Tick. Cannulas slid out of its mandibular cavity to pierce the back of Cooper’s neck and slip up into the skull through the carotid inlets and then drain all of the victim’s spinal fluid. Once digested, the cannulas then moved on to the
corpus callosum
where they would spend the next few hours leisurely sucking all of Cooper’s blood out through his brain. By now the Caco-Tick had swollen nicely, to something about the size of a pineapple. The parasite’s vein-lined blood reservoir quivered as it continued to fill.
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