Merkabah Rider: The Mensch With No Name (38 page)

“How can you claim to serve God and yet
conceive of these horrible punishments?” Kabede stammered.

“Hell
was here well before me,” said Lucifer guiltlessly. “Only Pandæmonium is of my
doing.” He drew the void curtain closed. “The tortures in the belly of hell
stem from man’s imagination, not mine. Each soul devises its own suffering.
That is the nature of Gehenna.”

“That
doesn’t make sense!” Kabede said. “What of the unrepentant?”

“If
they are found deserving of punishment,” Lucifer explained as he crossed the
room to draw the first curtain closed, “their tortures are prescribed by those
they have wronged. Oh, but Gehenna is nothing compared to the things man has in
store for his fellows in the next two hundred years. Slaughter and rape will be
the order of the day. There will come a time when perversion will be held up as
a model for your own children, and they will be encouraged to debase themselves
and deny their true existence in favor of the animal. It’s really too bad
neither of you will live to see it.”

“Base
lies!” Kabede insisted.

The
Rider admired Kabede’s passion and shared his growing wrath against Satan. What
of all he said was true and what was a lie? The Rider suspected at least some
of what Lucifer said was true because he had not yet called him by his true
name, only the Rider. And if he truly had no contact with Lilith or Adon, and
if what Kabede had told him was true then why did he not call him out?
Unless he did not know the Rider’s real name.

Though
his senses were reeling from the conversation, he tried to steer back to the
Hour of the Incursion. He turned away from the windows to focus.

“You
said the succubi were on the side of this Adam Belial and Samael.”

“Yes.”

“Then
why was I given this?” the Rider asked producing the rosette token that
protected him from Lilith’s children.

“Nehema
gave you that. She was my agent.
A spy among Lilith’s camp,
but only out of convenience.
There are familial issues between her and
her mother and Samael. She didn’t want them reunited. As I said, I knew of you,
and I know your formers master is one of Adam Belial’s servants. I suspected he
would try to eliminate you through Lilith, so I asked her to protect you if she
saw you.”

“With
a Judas draught,” Kabede said. “It has nearly killed him.”

Lucifer
shrugged.

“Magic
has its price.”

It
was odd to again think of Nehema, here in this place. Her face flashed in the
Rider’s consciousness, her body, the sound of her voice, and he felt a flush of
warmth in his center. But that was quickly dispelled, as if by a draft of cold
air.

“Why
did you say Nehema ‘was’ your agent?” the Rider asked sharply. “What’s become
of her?”

Lucifer
smiled. It was a slow, bemused grin that broke into a flashing show of genuine
amusement. The Rider saw his mistake in that smile. He had given the Devil
power.

“She
can be a beauty, can’t she, Rider?” Lucifer said.
“So beautiful
as to turn a tzadik into a Grigori.”

“What
is he saying?” Kabede murmured warily.

“What’s
happened to her?” the Rider asked again.

“Oh,
her sisters and her mother discovered her treachery almost immediately. She
compromised her cover for you, you know.”

“What
did they do to her?”

“She
was punished…
well,
she is still punished, as far as I
know.
In the manner of her kind.”

A
succubus was a demon. A demon couldn’t die, not really. They could be
disincorporated. They could be imprisoned. They could be tortured indefinitely.

“She’s
not here,” Lucifer said, as if reading his mind.

“Where
is she?”

“They
have put her in a place, where she is watched. Watched and punished, day and
night. Would you…like to know where?” he asked with mock innocence.

“This
is not to our purpose,” Kabede whispered.

“She
helped me.”

“At Satan’s behest.”

“I
wish you wouldn’t refer to me that way,” said Lucifer, walking back to his
desk. “I’m standing right here.”

“Tell
me,” the Rider said.

“She’s
a creature of evil,” Kabede warned.

“Shut
up!” the Rider snapped. Then, to Lucifer, “Where is she?”

“I’ll
tell you,” said Lucifer. “I’ll even help you free her.”

“What
do you want?”

“Two things.
First, another soldier for my ranks,” Lucifer
said. “My Order of the Peacock Angel has come at a disadvantage against your
traitorous master’s merkabah riders. Teach them your skills and we’ll work out
a deal.”

“Impossible!”
Kabede roared.

“Second,”
Lucifer went on, “my sources tell me you battled the entity Shub-Niggurath with
extra-universal knowledge given to you by one of the blue monks. I want to know
what it was they taught you. A sign, a word, what?”

“If
I do these things, you’ll help me free her?”

“You
won’t!” Kabede insisted.

“Teach
me the way to fight the Outer Gods and I’ll tell you where she is,” Lucifer
said. “Join me, and I’ll free her myself. Right now, if you wish.”

The
Rider held up his hand and drew the Elder Sign he had seen inscribed upon the
Star-Stone of Mnar in the air. Combining the action with his will, he instilled
some of his residual etheric energy into the end of his finger. The glowing
golden sign lingered there like an afterimage.

Lucifer
stared at the stylized star and eye design with its pillar of fire iris.

“This
sign drove off the Dark Mother?” Lucifer asked excitedly. With a wave of his
hand, the Elder Sign drifted through the air and revolved to face him

“It
held off the servants of Yig, and combined with the word they taught
me,
and one of the Star-Stones of Mnar…”

“Star-Stones?”

The
Rider described the stone he found in the back of the tunnel on Elk Mountain,
and told him all he knew about it.

Lucifer
nodded as he listened, and took a piece of parchment from his desk. He held it
up and drew the glowing Elder Sign onto it, where it flared and then died,
leaving a black scorched outline upon the paper.

“And
what was the word they taught you?” Lucifer asked excitedly.

“First…where
is Nehema?”

“Yuma,”
said Lucifer. “Ask for Lady Pleasant and you’ll find her.”

The
Rider nodded. Yuma.
Lady Pleasant.
It sounded like a
prostitute’s pseudonym. His mind raced to conjure a torture Lilith would have
found befitting for her wayward daughter. Though he was in the midst of hell,
he found he was capable of imagining a great deal which sickened him. Now that
he knew she was being held and punished for helping him, his desire to find her
became overwhelming.

He
looked at Kabede, who stared at him aghast, slowly shaking his head.

He
knew he was a step away from becoming Adon. He could see it in Kabede’s
expression.

“That’s
all,” he managed to say.

Lucifer’s
face fell visibly.

“Come
now, Rider, you’ve fought for me in the past.
Quite well, as
a matter of fact.”

“I
didn’t know it then.”

“What
difference is that?”

“All
the difference in the world,” the Rider said, though he spoke to Kabede, who
seemed to breathe his relief. He turned back to Lucifer.

“I’m
sorry. That’s all I can do.”

“Not
sorry yet,” Lucifer said, closing his eyes.

Then
the Rider both saw and felt the rosette token disappear from his clenched fist,
where he had kept it almost constantly since the night Nehema had given it to
him in the Bird’s Nest in Tip Top. A cold fear came over him then, so strong
that his merkabah magen actually flickered all about him.

Lucifer
opened his eyes and smiled.

“I’m
sorry, Rider. My gifts are for my friends.”

But how?
How could Lucifer have penetrated his field to
destroy the token? Then the Rider remembered the old hermit back at the
torreón.
Lucifer’s servant.
He must have taken the
token from his unconscious body. The circle wouldn’t stop him.

Without
the token, his body was open to attack by Lilith’s demons. Kabede said he’d
seen them filling the valley…

The
Rider looked at Kabede.

“I
know!” Kabede snarled, having come to the same conclusion. “Let’s go!”

Without
another word, they turned about and went rocketing out of the chamber as fast
as their will could take them.

Kabede
led the way. Though still seated within his merkabah magen, he drew the Rod of
Aaron from his lap and held it before him. He struck the closed doors of
Lucifer’s chamber. They flew off the hinges, smashing into the ranks of the
marble statues on either side of the hall, sending them toppling in a cloud of
dust.

They
went faster, blue and gold blurs of light flying down the hall of Pandæmonium.
When they reached the outer doors, again Kabede put forth the staff and again
the heavy gilded barrier crumbled. The two giant demons that had allowed them
to enter before turned to bar their way this time, but as they lunged forward
Kabede lashed at them with the staff. Each strike was like a blow from a caber
that sent the massive things flying back against the balustrades and tumbling
head over heels down the steps.

In
open air, the two merkabah riders now left the congested bridge across the lake
of fire and soared through the turgid clouds of vermin and blood, turning
barrel rolls and loops with all the expertise of diving sparrows as every
airborne creature of hell darted to intercept them. Their master’s displeasure
with the two mortal interlopers was evident to them somehow, and heavy wings
folded to drop savage bodies bristling with claws and barbs down upon them.
Arrows of ice and fire launched from the bows of hell, and bullets of iron and
steel screamed into the thick air, hell’s defenses swiveling inward to destroy
them. Somehow they passed, twisting and turning and plunging at the speed of
thought through the maelstrom, their encircling merkabah mginnah buzzing with the
impact of tooth, claw, and projectile, the thunder and scream of cannon and
beast ringing out all around them.

The
horrors of Gehenna erupted into a directed fury all around them. Even the
bodies of the damned were flung howling at them by the tartaruchi slingers who
cast them back and forth across the gulf of hell for sport. These human bullets
splattered against the walls of hell, bursting apart.

The
two men made for the doorway at the base of the torreón, and passed into the
winding stairwell just as some massive pursuer wedged into the too small
aperture behind them. It roared in resounding frustration.

The
Rider kept in Kabede’s luminous wake. All his concentration was on maintaining
his celestial vehicle, though every conscious thought warred against this end.
He pushed aside worry over Nehema, disgust at his part in Lucifer’s war and all
he had seen, and fear that his body was already dying above, whether from full
on assault by Lilith’s demons or a keen edged blade in the hands of the hermit.
He must believe he had a body to return to, or else hopelessness would send him
crashing back down these stairs.

Up
the stair they went, ascending at a dizzying speed, spinning, whirling. What
had seemed like a laboriously cautious and nerve wracking journey (how long
ago? It was difficult to gauge the passage of time outside of the body, which
was in some ways a natural timepiece) before now flew by with harrowing
alacrity.

Then
suddenly there was a burst of light and sound as he collided with his own body
like an arrowhead driving home into flesh.

The
familiar sensations returned, and his knotted stomach heaved. He vomited the
broth Kabede fed him into the pentacle in the sand.

Kabede
sank forward beside him. It had been an exhausting journey, and even the
younger man was fatigued.

The
Rider remembered the token then and felt for it. It was gone. He drew his
pistol and rose unsteadily to one knee.

The
old hermit sat in a corner tending a blazing fire and smiling. He held his fist
over the flames, and as the Rider watched, he opened his fingers. The rosette
token seemed to fall as if through water, slowly, end over end. As soon as it
touched the flames, it flared brightly and crumbled to ash.

The
Rider lurched forward and levered his pistol. He would have killed the old man
had Kabede not hooked his fingers into the back of his pistol belt and jerked
him back. He had no strength to resist.

As
it was, the old man fled the fire and ran to the door of the torreón.

“Stay
in the circle!” Kabede groaned. He was looking at the reddening sky overhead.