The Devil's Evidence (26 page)

This time, the bullet tore through the thing's face and exploded through the rear of its skull. Pieces of it spattered away, spraying up the tunnel wall, flesh and liquid clinging to the rough surface. The thing spun back and collapsed and the tendrils connecting it to the others pulled tight, dragged it back into the mass. Moving as one, the various parts of the creature gathered it in and carried on retreating, moving away from Fool and Summer. Deep inside it, he caught a glimpse of Israfil, still moving, flames burned to almost nothing, her beautiful face twisted in agony and fury.

“Let her go,” said Fool, moving in front of Summer, gun still pointing at the creature. It shifted, drawing farther back along the tunnel. Some parts of it were clinging to the ceiling, some to the walls, all backing away and watching him carefully. Face after face peered at him from the mass. What was it? It looked like separate creatures but moved as one, although its movement was jumbled and twitching. The separate parts themselves were all different, some vaguely humanoid and others more insectile, but all were surrounded by the connecting tissues. Fool studied it as it moved back, trying to fix its details in his mind in the hope that afterward he might be able to identify it. Assuming he survived, of course.

The creature, or some part of it, snarled at Fool. He gestured with his gun, pointing it at the nearest thing he thought might be a face. There were eyes there, anyway, a mouth splitting back around the skull and filled with teeth. “Let the angel go,” he said, but the thing merely snarled again. Its mass of connecting limbs twisted and rippled, surging forward and tangling together in front of the faces, forming a thick caul across the tunnel, the surface of it moving like thorned and bitter ink. Fool fired and, briefly, a hole tore open in the barrier, but it was filled quickly by more of those rapid, writhing limbs. The way it moved reminded Fool of something, although he couldn't think what it was. Something he'd seen recently, though, something constantly shifting and connecting and surging, filling spaces.

Outside, again outside.

Fool fired again, more out of frustration than the hope it would achieve anything. Again, a hole was torn in the thick skin that now filled the tunnel, and again it was filled almost instantly.

The tunnel narrowed as they moved down it, the creature shifting quickly, its makeshift shield protecting it from Fool's bullets. The ceiling was just above Fool's head now, scratching at his crown and hair. There was no light ahead of him, the illumination at his back coming from the cave but becoming fainter as he went farther from it. Behind the caul Fool could hear scuffling, the sound of claws clicking across stone, and then Israfil groaned again, low and weak like a candle about to gutter out.

I'm helpless,
Fool thought,
a little helpless Fool listening as an angel is tortured.
He fired again, and again the hole his bullet created was filled within seconds by a ripple of angular, twisting strands.

“Get out of the way,” said a voice from behind Fool—Benjamin, his tone low and dangerous. Fool, still holding his gun out ahead of him, still wary, moved to the side of the tunnel, flattening against the wall, hearing Summer do the same behind him.

“Thing, give the angel back,” said Benjamin. The tunnel filled with a fierce, angry light as Benjamin came along it, this light the sullen red of fury. As he passed Fool he felt the angel's heat, his
rage,
felt the light wash over him and it stank, the sour tang of burning metal and distant ovens and righteous justice and loathing. The angel's hands, he saw, were dripping with blood, spots of it spattering across the floor as he walked.

“Thing,” the angel said again, “let her go.”

The caul shifted, the parts that created it moving, twisting more tightly around each other. It thickened, crackling as it filled the tunnel, forcing itself against the wall but still moving away from them steadily. Fool held his gun out front as the angel raised its blood-streaked hands and summoned his fire and then, suddenly, the barrier collapsed.

The pieces flopped to the floor, relaxing, and then were sharply dragged away. Benjamin launched himself forward but the tunnel's narrowness prevented him from opening his wings properly, made him slow, and the creature and the dying angel it carried managed to stay ahead of him as it burst from the tunnel's mouth and fled into Heaven's night.

Benjamin shrieked in anger and launched himself out of the tunnel and rose up into the sky as a dark and speeding shadow. Fool followed far below, running as fast as he could, Summer at his side, an angel's anger ringing in his ears.

They emerged onto a gently sloping area of grassland. Before them, the ground inclined away, dropping to a flat, smooth plain that reached out to surround a ramshackle building perhaps half a mile distant.

The creature carrying Israfil had already covered half the distance to the building, moving fast, visible in the moonlight as a black and flowing stain on the earth. Above them, Benjamin loosed twin bolts of flame that crashed into the ground near the creature. Despite its ungainly movement it dodged the attack with ease, moving more and more quickly, gathering itself into a thicker and smaller mass as it went. Benjamin let fly more fire but this, too, missed as the creature shifted and went around the blast as soil and grass were thrown into the air and then fell back like rain.

“Where's it going?” asked Summer.

“There,” said Fool, pointing, starting to run again. Just before the building was an area that looked at first glance like a darker patch of shadow but that Fool recognized.

The creature was heading for another of the tunnels that burrowed into the ground.

Benjamin saw it as well and swooped low, flying ahead of the thing and sending his fire down to block its passage, but it again jerked sideways, never stopping, and darted around the explosion. The mass moved strangely, its edges jittering in an arrhythmic pulse. Benjamin circled as Fool fired, knowing as he did so that the shot was pointless; the thing was too far away for him to hope to hit it. Benjamin came around in time to see another Joyful be flung from the creature, thrown behind it so that the angel had to launch himself past the creature, fires and attack forgotten, trying to save the sleeper. Fool ran for the tunnel as Benjamin crashed into the falling human, the two connecting just above the earth and then crashing into it, rolling in a spray of dirt and frustrated noises. Fool's breath was hot in his lungs, his wrist and face throbbing, chest burning, but still he ran, trying to close the gap.

As Benjamin untangled himself and rose once more into the air, the webbed creature reached the edge of the tunnel and, without hesitation, plunged over and vanished from sight. Benjamin shouted something that Fool didn't hear clearly as he reached the flat part of the ground. A low hedge ran across the ground in front of him and Fool vaulted it clumsily, falling into an uneven roll on the far side before coming up and starting to run again. At his side, Summer hurdled the hedge gracefully and landed still running, sprinting ahead of him. Benjamin came in low over the tunnel, fire curdling from him in loops that provided a guttering illumination. Beyond, darker shadows were filling the sky, the stars blotted by them.

Fool reached the lip of the tunnel just after Summer and found himself looking down into an endless thing, tapered in its depths to a tiny black point, its walls a swirling blur of colors and shimmering rainbow patterns. Benjamin shouted again and dived into the tunnel, his flame dwindling as he dropped into it, his voice fading.

“Benjamin,” Fool shouted. “No!” He waited, helpless, expecting the tunnel to close as the one near the beach had done, vanishing to nothing and trapping the angel, but it did not. Instead, the tube began to grow dark, the colors in the walls fading and blackening like fires gradually slumbering to embers before being completely extinguished, the earthen sides becoming a cracked and ravaged skin. As Fool and Summer watched, Gordie arrived at their side, gasping.

“Where is it?” he managed to ask through his gasps.

“Gone,” said Fool.

“Gone where?” said Gordie, peering into the now-dark tunnel.

“I don't know,” said Fool.

“Isn't it obvious?” said Benjamin as he rose out of the tunnel, wings beating wearily. “It has gone home. It has returned to Hell.”

The shapes in the sky were angels, hundreds of them. They flooded the plain, landing in ranks, wings beating the air raw and lifting clouds of dust that swirled and lined Fool's throat and made it dry and uncomfortable. The angels' gleam was like moonlight and it lay over the ground like gossamer, the shadows between them like threads of moving cotton.

Rising in the air above the angels, Benjamin began to bark out orders, sending some back to the cave and ordering others to surround the tunnel that descended through Heaven's earth. Still others he sent out on tasks that Fool didn't understand, to borders and places that he had never heard of.

As the angels went about their tasks, they sang, a low lament whose words Fool could not understand but whose meaning was clear enough; they were mourning Israfil. The missing angel's wings were brought from the cave onto the plain and laid down, one over another, and then more angels formed a circle around the wings and stood with their heads bowed until, eventually, the kindliest angels came and lifted the wings away to wherever their journey was bound to end.

In the chaos, Fool tried to look into the tunnel again, but there were no gaps he could slip through in the wall of angels guarding it. When Fool tried to explain that he needed to investigate, the angel he spoke to gave him the kind of brief look that Fool might give to an insect and then looked back at the tunnel's mouth, arms folded in front of it and wings bristling out to its rear.

With little else to do, Fool and the others walked to the building beyond the tunnel. The space in front of it seemed to have become a staging ground for whatever operation Benjamin was controlling. The angel would rise into the air, spinning and floating, and then descend to give out more instructions to angels who would then go back to the waiting ranks, presumably to gather troops and carry out the orders they had been given. Fool tried to get to Benjamin but was again blocked, and eventually the three Information Men found themselves leaning against the side of the building.

“What is this place?” asked Summer, looking up at the structure. It was small, only two stories tall, and its roof was sloped and incomplete; holes dotted it here and there, although in the pale light it was impossible to tell if they were the result of missing tiles or breaks in something more solid. The building was made of rough stone, carefully hewn into bricks, and its heavy wooden doors were locked and resisted Fool's experimental push.

“I think it's a chapel,” said Gordie, gazing up at the building's roof. “Look, can you see the symbol?”

He pointed to one end of the roof, where a symbol was mounted on its highest point.

“I can,” said Summer, “but I can't see what it is.”

“It's everything,” said Gordie. “It's changing, can you see?” It was, Fool saw. Like the writing in Mayall's home, the shape on the roof's edge was constantly shifting, appearing now as something that might have been a cross and then as a star before becoming a shape that might almost have been a dagger and then changing again into something unrecognizable.

“I read about it,” said Gordie. “This is one of the places where all the religions meet. They used to have places like this in Hell, but there they were used for blasphemy, for corruption. Here, I suppose it's used for worship or just to…” He trailed off, unable to say what he thought.

“To acknowledge them,” said Fool.

“Yes. We may not even be seeing the same things at the same time, it may be different for each of us depending on our background, on the people we were before we came into Hell.”

They paused, looking at each other, not speaking.

“You read about it? In a book?” asked Summer finally, looking at Gordie, head tilted. “When?”

“Before,” said Gordie, his voice short and tight. “Before now.”

“You never cease to amaze me,” said Summer lightly, reaching up to stroke the man's cheek. “We were born in Hell, we
died
in Hell, and yet you read books and you remember everything you read. How did you find books in Hell?”

“They're there, if you know where to look,” replied Gordie, voice still tight. “I just looked.”

“You just looked,” said Fool. He had never seen books in Hell, except various volumes of the
New Information Man's Guide to the Rules and Offices of Hell
and a slim book called
Maps and Geographies
. Where had Gordie been, to find books?

Summer and Gordie carried on talking quietly and Fool moved along the wall a ways to give them a little privacy. He leaned against the stone, feeling it breathe out the warmth of the day into his back, unknotting muscles that he didn't know were tense. From where he stood, he could just see the symbol on the chapel's roof and he watched it for a few minutes, enjoying the way it changed constantly, never the same thing twice, lost in its blur and shift. What would Summer or Gordie see if they were looking at it with him now? What would Benjamin see? Or the Man? Would he see it not as a chapel but only as some kind of opportunity, something to be used and bled dry before being discarded?

What would Marianne see?

Thinking of Marianne made Fool turn and look, discreetly, at Summer and Gordie. They were standing close together, facing each other, and Gordie's head was bowed so that his forehead was resting on Summer's and they were talking quietly. Was that something he could have with Marianne? It was a dangerous thing to think, let alone hope for, but he could not help himself.
A chance,
he thought.
Just let me have a chance, that's all I ask.
Gordie and Summer started to kiss, gently, and Fool turned away again, giving them back their privacy.

Fool walked to where the shadows had caught in earth that had been recently trodden down and buckled beneath passing feet. Close to, he caught the faint whiff of corruption, a scent that grew stronger the closer he came, because they were tracks, fucking
tracks,
and how the fuck could the angels have missed them?

They weren't looking for them,
he thought, following the tracks.
Because they aren't Information Men. They don't understand the unknown, they're things of absolute and absolution. You need a suspicious eye to see this, not a loving one, not one that sees everything as perfect and cannot even see the imperfect until it's thrust into your face on a wave of blood and screams.

The trail led around the side of the chapel to its rear, where the ground was constrained by a low stone wall that created a long, trapped rectangle of grass. As Fool came around the corner he thought that the space was filled with birds, or maybe some kind of tiny angel that he had not seen before. Hundreds of small pale shapes were dancing up and down, flickering across the grass and swooping in tight circles. In the gathering night it was impossible to make out anything but the most basic of details of them, except that he could see that none of the shapes was more than a few inches across, their shapes irregular and ragged. Some seemed to be covered in lines of black or brown or etched shapes. Tattoos, he wondered, rubbing at his arms and at the designs that covered them beneath his clothes without thinking.

No, he saw as he came closer, not tattoos. Writing.

The shapes were pieces of paper, hundreds upon hundreds of pieces of paper fluttering and moving on the breeze, torn edges flapping, faces covered in writing or pictures. He reached out as one floated up past his face and managed to grasp it from the air. The paper was old, thin and worn, torn from some larger segment so that the words printed on it appeared to start and finish mid-word, “ot listen to m.” Fool let the paper go and knelt, picking up another, larger piece. On this was printed, “the PRINCIPIA is just a ha-ha, go re.” He let this go, too, and walked off the path, onto the grass, and immediately the ground beneath his feet was missing and he fell.

At first, he thought he'd fallen into one of the tunnels, that he would fall and fall until he either died or burst into Hell at the other end, where demons would eat his fear and leave him empty and dead, but just a moment after falling he hit a floor that gave slightly under him. The impact drove the breath from him, trapping one arm beneath him and jamming it into his ribs. His head jerked forward and struck something that felt initially soft but was hard underneath, like material wrapped around stone, and he smelled dust and something like linen or cotton left to age and rest.

It took Fool a second to move, rolling gingerly onto his back so that he could move his arm again. When he tried to reach for his gun, needles of pain ran along the limb, distorting the message between brain and hand, and he missed his grip, fingers thick and not seeming to bend properly. He reached with his other arm, the ground shifting beneath him, and rubbed at his upper arm and the lower, finally taking the damaged hand in his other and flexing the fingers back and forward carefully until he thought he had achieved some more usual level of mobility there.

Despite his expectations, nothing had attacked him. Reaching out not for his weapon but to his sides, he found walls carved into the earth. It was dry dirt that crumbled beneath his fingers, and as he leaned back more dirt spilled onto his shoulders and head. Above him, a rough square of the night showed, stars and a rich darkness framed by the blacker solidity of the walls. An angel, high, flew across the square, graceful even at this distance.

When he was sure that the wall wasn't going to collapse inward and bury him, Fool reached into his pocket and removed the feather. Its light, undimmed, showed him clearly where he was.

Fool had fallen into a grave. The hole was around six feet long, perhaps three wide, and, from what he could judge, about four feet deep. Had he landed on a coffin? He didn't think so, it didn't feel solid enough, was even now slipping beneath his buttocks, shifting him slightly. He lowered the feather, letting the light pool around his thighs and lower legs.

Books. This was a grave for books.