The Devil's Detective (40 page)

It was Balthazar.

The angel had managed to stand, his wings hanging bedraggled behind him. He limped toward Adam, and as he did so he reached behind himself and grasped one of his torn wings and yanked a handful of his feathers out. He raised them above his head and then plunged them down into Adam's back, groaning as he did so.

Adam howled and threw Fool aside, spinning where he stood, trying to reach around to pull the feathers free. Water scythed up in a silver curtain, spraying into the walls. He crashed into one of the pillars and the shafts of the feathers snapped off, leaving a part of themselves buried in his flesh. His questing fingers couldn't reach them, Fool saw as he pulled himself up from the water, using a wardrobe on its side for support. Balthazar had fallen and was floating away, this time on his back, his face a mask of agony. The water in the cellar churned as Adam thrashed, his clawed fingers finally reaching the broken feather barbs. He pulled one loose, dropping it into the water with a satisfied grunt. Black liquid spilled from the wound, trickling down his back and soaking
into his own feathers. When he had pulled the others out, Fool knew, he would finish what had been interrupted and Fool would die.

Feathers. What had Balthazar said about his feathers? He reached into his pocket, found the feather that he now thought of as his own, and gripped it. Feathers. Balthazar had thrust his feathers into the Fallen's flesh. Why? Because it was the only weapon he had? A last desperate gesture?

No, no, there was something else, something more. Something about what the feathers did.

Adam pulled another shaft free and dropped it. Another. How many more were left? One or two, maybe? Certainly no more than three.

Another one went into the water and now Adam looked up, glaring at Fool. Its mouth twisted into a shape that might have been a grin, revealing those bleak triangular teeth again, and it said, “Are you ready, Fool?”

Another one fell. Adam flexed his hands and reached back over his shoulder, but he was already rolling his shoulders and flexing his torso; this had to be the last one. What was it? Fool gripped the feather tightly, hoped, and suddenly thought,
Truth.

“How do I kill you?” he shouted.

“Wait until I'm open, Fool; that's your only chance.”

“Open? I don't understand. What do you mean?” asked Fool, but it was too late. Adam pulled a last piece of Balthazar from his back and let out a long, satisfied sigh.

“Now, Fool,” he said, “I'm growing hungry.”

Fool was pressed back against a piece of broken furniture, the water swirling around his legs and feet, its sharp edges digging into his thighs. His head ached, the muscles of his legs were trembling, and his hand was cramping from keeping hold of his gun. He was cold, shivering, water dripping down from his hair, getting into his eyes and making them sting, and Adam was little more than a blurred ivory shape as it slipped down into the water and vanished.

Fool moved, keeping his back pressed to whatever it was behind him. Fragments of it dug at him, caught in his clothes, and held him, and he heard something tear. He was lost in the room, unsure where the stairs were. His only hope was to follow the wall around and try to find them. Was Balthazar alive, still floating on the water's surface, or had he died? Fool wondered about trying to find the angel and dismissed the idea; he had to get out.

Where was Adam?

There—a white shadow slipping through the water. Fool fired but the shape twitched away and the plume of water that rose from the bullet's impact was nowhere near it. It turned back on itself, zigzagging across the space, growing faster, the waves it made buffeting against the walls and echoing back into the center of the room in disrupted patterns. Fool fired again, the noise bouncing off the damp brickwork, and another plume of water leaped up. The shape didn't stop, didn't slow.

Sped up.

Adam's wings broke the surface of the water, dark triangles creating wakes behind them. It was still warping, its shape changing, now longer and thinner, less human. Was this a distortion of its true angelic shape,
or something new? It veered again, was heading directly at Fool, and was rising up from the water. The surface broke around his now-conical head, its mouth open wide and wrenched into a wide grimace. It covered the distance between them incredibly quickly, finally exploding out in a froth of spray, silent. Fool tried to run, felt his jacket tear farther but couldn't get loose from the grasp of the furniture, and then Adam was on him.

Light was streaming from Adam's black eyes and out of his mouth, from the wounds in its back, the last of his angelic self untethering. It filled his nostrils and mouth, making the teeth vast against the swirling blue. Its arms came around, hands hooked, light bleeding from the fingertips and from the beds of his claws. Fool yanked up his gun, fired, and then Adam crashed into him and they both fell back into the water, crushing the piece of furniture under them. Fool could move again, tried to kick away, but Adam's arms had caged around him and its wings were curved, forming a hood over them. Its mouth stretched wider, a bolus of light forcing its way out from behind the teeth. The mouth opened wider still, the teeth gleaming, and its head descended. Farther and farther down it came, the mouth still stretched, lips pulling back from gums that had become pale and pitted and it was inches away and
He's open!
Fool thought wildly and jammed his gun into Adam's mouth and fired again.

For a brief instant, the muzzle flash and Adam's own light were in conflict in its mouth, and then it screamed and thrashed back. One wing came down and cracked into Fool's head, knocking him sideways and pressing him farther under the water. Liquid filled Fool's mouth and he breathed it in, his throat closing and then convulsing, ragged strings of air and vomit pushing out as he coughed. He dug upward with his hands, drew in another breath of water, and coughed again violently. His heart yammered, his lungs trying to suck as his mouth tried to close. Which way was up? Where was down? He rolled, still reaching, lost in bubbles and blackness, and then his hand was out, feeling air, flailing.

Fool vomited and coughed as he came into the air, emitting nothing but strings of bile, trying to suck in something other than water. He whooped inward, his lungs forcing his throat open, managed to draw one ragged breath, and then was coughing again. He caught hold of
something, pulled himself into a crouched upright position, and then bent, hacking and breathing and spitting all at once.

Adam.

Fool turned, trying to see something, anything, but his eyes were filled with multicolored lines and sparks. He blinked, seeing nothing beyond them but hearing screaming. Water spattered against him, trying to unsettle him, and he gripped his handhold more tightly. Blinking again, he began to clear the lights, leaving him staring at a maelstrom in the center of the cellar.

Adam was spinning rapidly, its wings beating up and down against the water, screaming. Its head was wreathed in light, crawling webs of blue and white. The rear of its skull was a hole, large and ragged, the upper portion of his head missing, and it was not healing. Its hands beat at the light, covering the hole, then forced away by the emerging colors. The water was whirlpooling around it, battered to violent foam.
I've injured it
, thought Fool wonderingly.
It opened up to eat me, and I injured it. Good.

Good.

He raised his gun and then realized that he no longer held it. He looked down, the water bucking around him, seeing nothing but bubbles and blackness. Experimentally, he moved a foot about, feeling for the gun. Nothing. Adam was slowing now, the flow of light from its ruptured head slowing to little more than a trickle. It stood lopsided, shoulders tilted, one arm hanging loose and one wing drooping, trailing in the water. It came to a sloppy halt, turned too far, and then came back around to peer at Fool.

Fool had never prayed; no one in Hell did, he suspected, because they knew that God was nowhere to be found, but he prayed now. Adam took a lurched step toward him, one leg dragging, thick ropes of tarry liquid now spilling down its shoulders from its head, and said, “I'm glad you're my first human meal, Fool.” Its voice was slurred and broken.

“I'll eat you, and then I'll heal. I'm already healing, I can feel it,” it said, its teeth clicking as it spoke. Fool didn't know how to pray, had no idea whom to pray to or whether he was doing it right, but he prayed anyway,
Help me, help me, helpme help​me​help​me​help​help​help​help.
Adam took another step, stumbled, used its good wing to right itself, and carried on.
It was almost within touching distance; Fool tried to back away, but the thing behind him, a metal filing cabinet whose painted sides were thick with rust, refused to move. He pushed again as Adam made a noise that might have been slurred words but might have been simply a groan, and then his foot hit something.

He dropped to his knees and reached down
help​me​help​me​help​me​help
and his fingers closed around his gun. He held it up as Adam took another shambling step and reached out. He heard screaming, realized it was him, pointed the gun, and fired.

The bullet took Adam in its left eye, spun the Fallen, and sent it crashing back across the room. It was still open, still vulnerable, and Fool followed it, bearing down on the thing that was no longer an angel and firing as soon as his next bullet formed.

This one took Adam in the shoulder, above its drooping wing, and tore a piece of flesh and muscle out. The edges began to knit, Fool saw, but slowly, sluggish and inefficient. Scraps of skin formed and then broke apart, but it was healing. Fool fired again, and then again.

Adam managed to push out across the room, the muzzle flashes painting it in stark shadows across the walls, and then fell against the stairs. Turning toward Fool, it hissed and lashed out with its good wing; the other one was starting to move again, twitching, rising. The wing hit Fool, not hard but enough to knock him sideways. He went into the water yet again, emerged as fast as he could and firing but missing, a chunk of stone leaping free from the wall near Adam's head. In Adam's depthless black eyes, Fool saw something new, and he grinned and fired again.

Adam was scared.

This bullet tore through a wing that no longer had feathers but was simply a piece of thick, jointed flesh, and Adam howled. It scrambled up the steps, fast, leaving behind trails of water and thick blood behind it, and then was gone through the entrance at the top.

Fool went after it, firing at the empty doorway in frustration. He stumbled on the steps as he came out of the water, his legs weak, and had to use the wall for support. How much more of this could he take? Not much, he didn't think. There wasn't a part of him that didn't hurt, that wasn't throbbing or aching. He took another two steps up, his eyes
coming level with the floor above, and that was when Adam reappeared and took hold of his head.

Fucking idiot Fool
, he had time to think, and then he was yanked up and dragged through the entrance. Adam's grip was loose but not loose enough, and Fool couldn't shake it. He was dragged through the lobby of the house, brought his gun up but couldn't bring it around far enough to fire without being sure of missing himself, and then decided he was likely to die whatever happened and fired anyway.

He felt the bullet roar past his ear, its wind tearing at him. Adam let go of Fool and fell, crashing against the entrance doors. It hissed, wordless and savage, and then rolled back and tugged at the doors. Fool tried to raise his gun, but his arm was loose and weak and he could not bring it up off the floor. Ghosts came and went in his vision as Adam opened its cavernous mouth, the hiss turning into a shriek, and opened the doors.

The first rock hit it on the head, the second on the shoulder, and then Adam was lost in a hail of rocks and bricks. It was forced back into the house by the deluge and through the space it left came a vast flow of the Sorrowful. Some held poles and clubs of wood or metal and swung them at Adam, others had more rocks that they threw or held tight and struck out with. Adam was driven to its knees, turning and hunching its back to his assailants. One of the Sorrowful darted forward and hit the back of its head with a chunk of rock, leaving it embedded in the already gaping wound there. More of them came forward, striking.

Adam lashed out, snapping its jaws closed around the nearest neck, and there was a brief spray of blood. The Fallen shook its head back and forth, tearing the flesh, spitting it out after swallowing what fear it contained. Someone stabbed at it with a broken piece of wood and it grasped them, its mouth opening wide and clamping around the man's head. It lifted the man, slurping at his pain and terror, and then another Sorrowful hit it with a piece of brick.

Fool managed to sit up, the floor's covering of broken stones and brick biting at his hands. “Don't let him feed,” he said, trying to shout, but his voice came out as little more than a harsh whisper.

“Don't let him feed,” he called again. This time his voice was louder but was still lost under the shouts of the crowd. More and more people
were piling into the house, all of them trying to get close to Adam, to hit it. Fool lifted his gun, let it drop; his grip wasn't secure enough to fire, and he couldn't get a clear shot. Adam's throat worked as it drank from the man, its wounds beginning to close as it took in sustenance.

“For fuck's sake, stop him feeding,” Fool managed to shout and then slumped back. He was too tired, too damaged to do anything else.

The Sorrowful set about Adam again, hemming the thing that had been an angel in and preventing it from moving away. Someone within the mass swung a long, thick piece of wood, a section of the gate, and the blow shattered Adam's jaw, dislodging the human from his grip.
That's right
, thought Fool,
that's right.