Once Upon a Time in Hell (7 page)

"There's people in the water," I said.

"Ahuh," he agreed, "hungry people. But it ain't water."

As the paddleboat slowed to draw up alongside the jetty there was a dull cracking sound like lightning and I looked up to see a flash of white light in the sky. From this bright point a human figure appeared, tumbling through the crimson clouds and falling into the lake.

"Where's he come from?" I asked. "The lake is filled with souls who feel they deserve it," he said, "that's what keeps it so deep."

As the boat drew to a halt I noticed the blades of the paddle. They were sharp metal, stained with the gore they cut their way through. I looked over the side again and began to realise what it was we were planning on sailing on. 'It ain't water,' he'd said and I now imagined the thousands of bodies, reduced to thick liquid by the paddles as they cut and chopped on their journey.

"That's disgusting," I said. "What did they do to deserve that?"

"Nobody forces you to be part of The Bristle," said a voice from next to me, no doubt assuming I had been talking to them, my companion unseen. "You wish yourself into the slopping tides, nobody does it for you." I looked to see who was speaking. It had a woman's voice but the scabbed face that peered out from within its cream-coloured hood could have belonged to either gender. "People are their own worst enemies aren't they? Begging to have their sins wiped clean with whip or blade or fire. Get over it, you were a shit head, that's what I say."

She smiled and her face cracked. I nodded and gestured for her to step onboard the boat ahead of me.

The man from the kiosk had come out of his booth to be joined by a couple of sailors from the boat. One was a normal looking man but for the length of his black beard which he tucked in his belt, the other glowed with the sort of pale green light you see on night insects.

They lowered the gangplank and began ushering people aboard, the man from the kiosk taking back the tickets he had only recently handed out and slipping them into his pocket.

"Careful who you talk too," said the old man, "most of them won't pay you any mind but you shouldn't trust the people you meet here." I nodded.

"We have a little business to conduct onboard but stick by me and I'll keep you on the straight and narrow."

I handed back my ticket, suddenly remembering the time I'd kissed Esme Heap behind the schoolhouse, and climbed onboard the Riverboat Clearlight.

"T
HE
D
EVIL TOOK
her," the girl had said and none of those gathered could summon the confidence to contradict her.

Billy turned to see that Elisabeth and her father had caught up with him.

"Someone should look after the girl," he said to her.

She smiled, though it was false, a pretty thing hung over a trap. "Indeed they should, but don't expect me to do it just because I'm a woman."

He sighed. "I didn't mean nothing by it."

"Of course you didn't." It was clear she didn't believe him.

Clarke had squatted down in front of the girl, taking her flapping hands and squeezing them in his own. "It's alright child. You just calm down, we'll find your mama for you."

Billy went over to examine the rocks, Elisabeth at his side.

"Blood," he whispered, looking at the thin red trail.

"Mama didn't go quietly."

"What did the Devil look like, my dear?" Lord Forset asked the child.

"Red," she said, "all over his face."

"But he was a man?" the Lord qualified. "He looked like a man, yes?"

She nodded. "But he was the devil, I know it." Billy turned to Lord Forset. "Can I borrow your rifle, sir? I'd feel more comfortable if I were armed."

"I'll come with you," said the peer.

"I'd rather you stayed here. No offence but I'll move quicker on my own."

Forset considered for a moment then handed the rifle over. "Now is not the time to argue, a woman's life is at stake."

"Thank you." Billy checked the rifle was loaded and accepted extra cartridges from Forset. "I'll do my best," he said to the crying girl.

He was halfway up the rough track between the rocks when he noticed Elisabeth was following. "I said I'd move quicker on my own."

"Haven't slowed you down so far, and, as my father said, now is not the time to argue.

Keep moving, I'm coming with you whether you like it or not."

Billy cursed under his breath but did as he was told.

He slung the rifle across his back so that he could use his hands to pull himself up through the rocks. The blood trail was fairly consistent, not so heavy as to suggest a fatal wound but steady enough to give him cause to doubt for the woman's longevity. Whatever—or rather, whoever, he wasn't about to believe this was the work of the Devil just yet—had taken her was dragging her behind them as they climbed.

"Whoever it is possesses a good deal of strength," he said to Elisabeth. "It's a fairly easy climb but not if you are dragging a woman behind you all the way."

He looked further up the mountain, hoping to catch a glimpse of their quarry. The light was beginning to fail now, as evening gave in to night, and the terrain was uneven, the trail winding through narrows all the way. The attacker had more than enough cover to keep them from view.

"You think he knows we're following?" asked Elisabeth.

"You'd think he'd guess it likely. The kid's scream could be heard for miles. Of course people were going to come running."

"I would have expected him to dump the woman and run."

"Yeah, makes you wonder what it is he wants her for."

"Maybe he knows them? It could be something personal."

"Kid didn't recognise him."

He waved at her to be quiet, stopping and listening for a moment. There was a scrabbling sound followed by a slow clatter of rocks.

"He's not too far ahead," said Billy, picking up the pace, almost running up the trail, leaping from rock to rock.

Elisabeth, much to her irritation, struggled to keep up with him. If she had had the good sense to wear a pair of trousers, she cursed, she'd be more than a match for him. She resolved to get changed on their return.

"Stay back," said Billy as she emerged onto a small plateau. He was stood a few feet ahead of her, his voice low and quiet. "You don't need to see this."

Whether she 'needed' to or not didn't matter one damn to Elisabeth who ignored his ad vice and stepped up alongside him.

The little girl's mother was lying on the face down on the rocks before them.

"Did she fall?" Elisabeth wondered, noting the spreading pool of blood, quite black in the twilight, that surrounded the body. "Or maybe he dropped her?" She moved closer but Billy put his hand on her arm. She shook it off. "Please Billy," she said, "you're terribly nice but if you keep insisting on attempts at gallantry we're going to fall out."

She turned over the body and it fell on its back with a sound like wet clothes being beaten against stone.

"She wasn't dropped," she said. "Rocks don't do that much damage."

Billy squatted on the other side. He looked down, suddenly realising he was treading in the woman's blood then realised there was little he could do about it, the pool had spread so far he could hardly not.

"Like an animal attack," he said, thinking back to the stories he's heard of an engine driver that had worked for the company. The man had left his cab to clear the carcass of a deer from the tracks ahead. As he had been pulling at the animal he had been set upon by wolves. His engineer had scared the animal away with his rifle but not soon enough to save the driver's life.

By the engineer's account—and it was a story he drank on for years—there had been little left of the driver but a pair of legs and some teeth.

He looked around them, unslinging the rifle in case something was bearing down on them.

"Up there," whispered Elisabeth, pointing to a distant silhouette of a man leaping across a narrow crevice further up the mountain. The figure appeared only for a moment, caught against the faint light left in the sky, and was then gone.

"He can't have done this," Billy said. "Nothing human could have done."

"'The Devil took her?'" Billy couldn't think of a reply.

T
HE BOAT WAS
the biggest I'd ever set foot on. Three decks crammed full of passengers of all persuasions. The place rang out with the sound of a calliope, hurling its cheery melody into the air as if revelled in the sickness that surrounded it. No doubt it did, certainly my squeamishness was noticeably unusual amongst the other passengers who drank and caroused their way from deck to deck, cabin to cabin.

We aimed for the bar and I was sorely tempted to break the habit of a lifetime and take a drink. The old man had me order a bottle anyway so that he could partake. The bar staff all wore the same fixed smile—which sounds like one of those literary terms but I'm no Patrick Irish, I mean it literally—the smiles were fixed with hooks and nails, gaping lips yanked apart to reveal their teeth. I guess the owner took his customer service seriously. I did my best to ignore them, turning instead towards the stage which was filled with dancing girls cavorting in so lewd a manner I couldn't take my eyes off them (while also being struck by a paralysing embarrassment. I was, you'll remember, something of an innocent back then). The troupe high-kicked to the piped dance numbers, revealing their naked under carriages to the eager whooping of the front row. My attention was caught in particular by a brunette left of centre, she was quite simply the most beautiful woman I'd ever set eyes on. Her hair in tight tresses, her eyes wild, she danced with such enthusiasm I was utterly swept away by her. The innocent boy inside me did his best to focus on her face, as if he were somehow insulting her to do likewise. He didn't always manage. I’d seen a hypnotist routine on stage once, a crusty old German with a pointy beard striking people brainless with the power of his 'magical mesmerism', leading them around as mindless puppets. He could have saved himself the effort; even at that young age I knew the surest way of making a man forget himself was to put a pair of jiggling titties in front of him. It reduces even the most intelligent specimen to the likes of a panting dog.

"Caught your eye has she?" the old man asked.

"Who?" I blustered, doing my best to feign innocence.

He took another mouthful of his drink. "You watch yourself boy, a woman like that is sure to eat you alive."

I shrugged in pretend indifference and went back to watching and dreaming my sordid little thoughts.

"It's a woman we're looking for," he said, "but you won't find her up there. If you can tear your eyes away she's likely to be on one of the gaming tables."

I pretended I was only too happy to leave, sparing one last glance towards the stage where I swore the girl tipped me a wink.

W
HILE THE BAR
had been a raucous and carefree place, the casino took things more seriously.

Not that it was quiet, the room was huge, containing somewhere in the region of thirty or forty gaming tables. The call of bets, the spin of roulette wheels and the riffling of cards made a wall of sound that rivalled the calliope and cheering next door. The atmosphere was wholly different though, for every occasional cheer of celebration, most in the room wore masks of intense concentration, fear and anger. This was a place where fortunes were lost more than won.

I moved past a large woman, bulging in a dress of red satin that made her look like some thing a butcher had just removed from a carcass.

"My luck's going to turn," she said, "just you see, any minute now my luck's going to turn."

She closed her eyes and muttered prayers to whichever god might offer her best odds and the wheel was spun. I glanced past her, wanting to see if her prayer was answered. The wheel looked like a living thing, built from cured meat and bone, the ball that bounced between its divisions like a bullet reverberating around a rib cage. It fell into black twenty-two, and she crumpled in despair.

"God damn the thing," she sighed, "maybe next time... yes, maybe next time..." she began to shake, like she was having some kind of fit and then, slowly toppled to one side. The crowd parted, and she fell crashing to the floor, still quivering as she lay there.

"What's wrong with her?" I asked but the old man grabbed my arm and pulled me away.

"Don't interfere with the house business. Or we'll never get out of here."

"Shouldn't someone fetch a doctor or something?"

"She's in Hell, boy, what exactly do you think a doctor's going to be able to do for her?"

Yes, well, there was that.

"Just keep your mouth shut," the old man said, "or you're going to draw attention. Remember, you look like you're talking to yourself, nobody can see me."

"Lucky them," I muttered. "We're here to see a woman called Agrat."

"Pretty name."

"Stop your damned talking." He actually kicked me slightly in the back of the legs as I moved ahead of him. The old man had a temper on him and no mistake.

"She will be dominating one of the card tables," he continued, "she can never resist a game of chance, and like all the first family she's powerful enough to win."

I looked around. A thin creature, its arms and legs jointed the wrong way, like those of an insect, turned its single eye towards me and grimaced.

"Just passing through," I said, tapping the brim of my hat. It extended a flat tongue, like a thick slice of ham and slapped the side of its face with it. Whether this was an insult or just personal hygiene it was impossible to say.

I nearly stepped on another member of the clientele as it slithered its way between the tables, an albino worm that had at least gone to the trouble of putting on a collar and tie. Say what you like about the residents of Hell, they know how to dress. Or not, I was forced to concede, when presented with the dangling pecker of a horned fellow as he turned towards me. I think I must have gasped (the damn thing was dragging its tip on the carpet; as dicks went it was pretty damn startling). Its owner smiled, apparently pleased to cause such a response. I tried to smile back but that was made difficult by the fact that the pecker rose up independently and nodded at me.