The Devil's Evidence (29 page)

“What happened?” asked Fool, already thinking he knew the answer.

“The Evidence,” said Marianne. “I heard them the night after we were here last. They're out of control, they do anything they like now. Some of the Information Men have vanished, sir. I don't think anyone's safe.”

“No,” said Fool, thinking about judgment without justice, about Mr. Tap's near-feral children, the bauta, running amok along Hell's streets yet having the veneer of officialdom.
I did this,
he thought.
Even if the war isn't my fault, this is. I created the space into which Mr. Tap and the Evidence fit. I made them.

“They're taking demons now,” said Marianne, and her voice was flat, toneless. “I heard people talk about it. I'm still trying to do my job, but it's almost impossible. All I can do is listen and try to avoid being seen.”

“Listening is important, Marianne,” said Fool, trying not to let the pain show in his speech. “You're doing well but I'm not sure what you heard is right. I don't think the Evidence are taking demons, I think it's something else. It's why I need to talk to the Man.”

“How do I call him?” asked Marianne, Fool's skin splitting and moving to form the words.

“You don't need to,” said the Man, and the plants in front of them twisted, the stems and leaves forced into a new shape. It was humanoid again, the large body with its indications of arms and a belly topped by a knot of branch and twig that could easily have been a head, leaves placed for eyes and tangled into rolls to create the lips.
Even now, he's re-creating the body he had,
thought Fool,
fat and gross and imposing.

“Hello, Fool,” said the Man. “What news?

“I hear rumors, Fool, that the angels have led us to war. Is it true? Have I had angels trespassing through me and not noticed? Which ones, I wonder? Those of Gabriel or Malachi, or ones whose provenance is less sure, created for a single terrible purpose?”

“I don't think it was angels,” said Fool. “Trespasses have happened in Heaven, too. I think it's something with access to both, setting one against the other. I think it's…” He paused, unable to remember if he'd mentioned the things outside of everywhere in his discussions with the Man or if they'd been something he kept back.

“Yes? Tell all, Fool!”

“I know what made the tunnels.”

The Man waited a moment before answering, and his tone, when he did, was one of surprise. “How did you know? Have you spies other than me, Fool?” The Man, the plants that formed the Man, rose up, stretching away from the ground and puffing up. Fool heard the snapping of dead stems as he moved, heard Marianne's gasp as the plant figure became larger, looming at them.

“No, I worked it out,” Fool said loudly. He remembered a word that Gordie had used once, and added, “I deduced it.”

“Did you indeed? Then share your deductions, Fool, share them now,” said the Man, sinking back to the earth in a rustle and crackle of relaxing growth.

“It's the things that live in the places outside of everywhere,” said Fool. How many times would he need to say it? It didn't matter, he supposed, whether his lies and omissions were discovered now. There was simply the coming war and his attempts to stop it; everything else he'd deal with afterward.

“You mean there are new things in Hell, things for me to know about? Tell me all about them, Fool! Tell me how I can find them, now!”

“No.”

“Fool,” said the Man, starting to stretch again, voice dangerously low and pleasant, “I insist.”

“No. A trade. I'll tell you everything I know after, when I've stopped the war.”

“And how do you propose to do that?”

“By proving it to the Bureaucracies of Heaven and Hell. I'll show them, and they'll have to believe me. Especially if you tell them what you know, tell them about the trails through the forests you found and the earth that's been tunneled through and closed up again.”

“Reveal myself? Never, Fool, have you gone mad?”

“Help me, and I'll tell you everything. I'll tell you about Heaven and I'll tell you about Mayall and I'll tell you about the Malakim and the tunnels between worlds. I'll give you the feather.”

The Man did not reply for a long, long time. The plants dropped in on themselves, and Fool began to think he had left them until they suddenly raised themselves and looked straight at Fool's face on the paper, straight into Fool's eyes.

“I agree. I'll tell them everything, but it will have to be here in Hell. I cannot get to Heaven and they won't believe you if you simply tell them what I've said.”

“Where?”

“Assemblies House. Get them to the House, I can come to them there. Bring them all, Fool, and I'll tell them what I know.”

“Okay. I'll do what I can.”

“Do more, Fool. I hear the Estedea are coming, and they're merciless in their sorrow. If the war starts and they arrive, nothing in Hell is safe, not human or demon or even me. Move fast, Fool. Move fast.”

“Yes.”

The Man collapsed, the essence of him leaving the plants in front of them and dissipating through the garden and away. “Marianne,” said Fool.

“Yes?”

“Stay safe, keep hidden, I'll need your help. I'm coming back, I'll be there as soon as I can. I'll keep you safe, I promise.”

“Please,” said Marianne and then, consciously or unconsciously echoing the Man, continued, “Move fast.”

The link was broken. Fool sighed in relief as the splits along the tattoo's black lines sealed, the now-familiar itch of healing skin scratching at him like a returning friend. He opened his eyes to see Summer and Gordie staring at him, Summer at his arm and Gordie at his face.

“That's how they've made you communicate,” Summer said again. “It's awful.”

“It's not so bad,” Fool said, and knew that Summer knew he was lying even as the untruth escaped his lips.

“How are you going to do it?” asked Gordie. “How are you going to stop the war?”

“I don't know,” said Fool and thought,
It's that fucking phrase again.
“I just know I have to try.”

And I made a promise. I have a promise to keep.

“We need to look at the tunnel again,” said Summer. “Maybe there's something there we missed?”

“I agree,” said Gordie. “The tunnel.”

“How are we going to get there? We're locked in,” said Fool, still bleary with the aftereffects of pain, and at that moment the door shook as something crashed into it and a great howl was raised in the corridor beyond the room.

Summer's hand jumped immediately to her thigh, to where her gun would have been strapped if she had still had one, and slapped in frustration at its absence, at the plain expanse of linen. Fool, even as he was rising from the bed, pushing himself through the weariness, saw the gesture and grinned humorlessly; she had always been a natural Information Man.

There was another crash at the door. Gordie rose but the lack of space made movement awkward and he stumbled, falling over the bed in front of him as he tried to push past Summer to get between her and the door. Fool moved slowly, pushing himself along the bed in a half-risen stance, trying to find his balance. Straightening was difficult partly because of the ache in his stomach muscles and the feeling that they had become like wet rope, unable to tauten, but also because his skin felt tight and lacking give.
Fucking Mr. Tap,
he thought, still moving,
my new scars are knotted too tight. I can't stand properly.
Hunched, he found some kind of balance and pushed past Gordie. His gun was on the table and he picked it up as another crash sounded, the door shaking violently in its frame.

“Who's there?” he asked, but the only reply was a roar, low and rumbling. The door jerked, hard, and began to shiver as something or someone pushed against it from the outside. The lock held, but the wood, thick though it was, began to bend in at the top of the door. Something flowed through the gap, two sluggish white streams that seemed to undulate as they crawled across the wood, moving across the inner face of the door until they met and merged. The door bowed in farther and the streams thickened, grew faster. Droplets were falling from them now, things that bounced to the floor and then began to move toward each other.

Maggots.

“Wambwark,” said Fool, stunned. After everything that was happening, after the trouble they were in, the silly bastard still harbored this grudge? Blamed Fool for the turn of events?

Yes. The streams were moving swiftly now, the area where they met forming itself into two clasped hands. Bugs fell from the streams, gathering on the ground and massing up, forming the start of legs. From behind him, Fool heard Summer cry out. When he looked around, he saw that a line of bugs was making its way toward Gordie and her, cutting them off from Fool. Summer began to stamp at the line, and the noise of the maggots popping under her feet was terrible, a molasses spray of a noise. Gordie joined in and the air soon stank of the demon's stench, rich and corrupt and sour. Their shadows moved constantly around them like the arachnid dance of some vast insect.

“Wambwark, stop!” shouted Fool, hoping to be heard over the roaring, but the only reply was another crash against the door. The screws of the top hinge popped partially loose of their wooden home, their heads jolting out perhaps half an inch. The door's top section bent farther, more of Wambwark crawling around it, forcing itself in, and there was a sharp crack as the upper panel began to splinter.

“I'm so sick of this,” said Fool, more to himself than to anyone else, raising his gun to roughly head height. He pressed it against the door, forcing it into the growing mass of maggots, and then more loudly said, “One last chance, Wambwark. Stop this, please, and piss off.”

Another crash, another roar, and the door was bending back on itself with a sound that groaned and cracked in equal measure. Fool could now see Wambwark's head and what passed for its face. It was lower than he expected, presumably because so much of it was already in the room, and its eyes glittered, red and insane.

Behind Fool, Summer shrieked. Without moving, he glanced over his shoulder and saw that she was on the floor with her hands splayed out, the left swarmed by maggots. They moved fast, covering exposed skin in seconds, and she shrieked again, yanking her hand back, shaking it furiously. “It burns,” she cried out as the bugs were flung from her. “
They
burn.”

Gordie took hold of the collar of Summer's shirt and pulled her back, simultaneously pulling a sheet from the bed and using it to beat away the remaining bugs from her hand. Fool glimpsed her skin, red and blistering, and then his own hand was afire.

The maggots had bulged up around the barrel of his gun, forming a bridge that led them to his fingers. Summer was right, they
burned
as though they were fat with poison. He jerked back, shaking his hand as Summer had done, knocking the little white bastards off. One had started to burrow into the skin of his knuckle, blood welling around it as it surged its way into his flesh. He grabbed it by its wriggling rear end and pulled and it came free in a bubble of bleeding and pain. Fool was horrified to see that the fucking thing had turned pink from feeding on him and he dropped it with a cry, stamping on it and then moving back to avoid any more of the things reaching him.

Wambwark's face, in the gap, split into a wide grin, maggots falling from its lips like fleshy saliva.

Fool stuck the barrel of the gun into the gap and pulled the trigger, and Wambwark's head exploded in a spray of maggots and blood and yellow slime. Instead of falling back, the demon leaped forward and crashed into the door as Fool made a compensatory jump back. His knees caught on the edge of a bed and he fell, only just holding on to his gun. His hand was throbbing, sending waves of a sick, dizzying pain up his arm.

The door buckled, snapping over to reveal Wambwark's top half. Already maggots were flowing up, re-creating its head. Fool pointed his gun in the direction of the demon and fired again, and this time part of the thing's shoulder exploded as the bullet tore through it, maggots spinning away in an arc of yellow streaked dark red with blood.

Wambwark yowled, punched, and kicked at the lower part of the door, shaking it. The lock held, more of the maggots falling into the room as Fool fired a third time, this time aiming as carefully as the situation would allow, placing the shot into the demon's chest. This had more impact, tore a hole through the creature and punched it back. It slammed into the far wall of the corridor and pushed itself off the wall in one clumsy movement, but before it could come back to the door Fool's new bullet had formed and he fired again.

This time, Wambwark was clearly wounded. The bullet opened a path near its shoulder, merging with the hole from the previous bullet so that its chest was mangled. It spun back against the wall and this time did not bounce back but slithered down it, leaving a trail of dark liquid in which maggots wriggled.

The bugs in the room began to surge back toward the door. “Don't let them get back to him!” Fool shouted, struggling upright, but Gordie had already started to hit at them, toppling one of the beds so that he could use its flat edge as a weapon, crushing legions of the things at a time.

In the corridor, Wambwark let loose a long, desperate wail and tried to use the wall to lever itself up to a standing position. It was much smaller now, too much of it separated from its main body, the damage to its chest and shoulder not healing properly.

Fool kicked aside the bugs, treading on them as he did so, and stepped to the broken door. Looking down at the demon as the sound of Gordie's exertions behind him became louder, he said, “You brought this on yourself.”

He fired again.

This time, Fool aimed for the head and watched, detached, as it exploded apart again. Maggots moved sluggishly to reform the dome, but as soon as his bullet was there, he fired again, and again, and again.

Eventually Wambwark stopped trying to rise. The demon moved in disjointed arrhythmic surges, its eyes still glittering like spots of angry blood in a face that was damaged and collapsing.

Fool leaned on the bottom half of the door and, with difficulty, put his gun back in its holster. Its barrel was hot, hot enough to be felt through the leather and the material of his pants, but not as hot as his hand had become. He held it up in front of him, watching as the skin bulged, as it swelled. His fingers looked like fat sausages and he could bend them only a little. Veins rose, red and angry, across the back of the hand, the redness extending toward his wrist. Clear, foul-smelling liquid dripped from the hole that Wambwark's maggot had made.

When he turned to Summer, Fool saw that she was in a far worse condition.

Her whole arm had started to swell, had become red, glistening with sweat. Where Fool had been bitten or burrowed into by only one bug, Summer had been punctured by several and her fingers and palm and wrist were slick with blood and the same weeping, clear fluid. She was holding her arm at the elbow and crying, her face crunched into a pained wrinkle, tears dripping down her cheeks and off her chin. As Fool watched, the crawling redness popped the veins up farther and farther along her arm, the swelling and pain traveling back toward her body.

“Help me,” said Gordie, crouching behind Summer and propping her up against him. “Bring me the water.”

Fool hobbled to the table and picked up the jug of water. He had to pick it up using his wrong hand and he slopped it as he lifted.

“Be careful, we need it to clean her hand,” snapped Gordie and then, to Summer, he said, “It'll be okay. We'll make it better.”

Don't promise that,
thought Fool,
don't ever promise that.
Silently, with waves of sharp pain starting to encircle his wrist and stretch into his forearm, nausea flipping his already abused belly, he carried the water over. Gordie took the jug and Summer stretched her arm, the skin shiny with tension and glowing with the furnace heat of poison. By her elbow the sleeve of her shirt was puffed and taut as the flesh below it swelled.

“It'll be okay,” Gordie said again and poured the water over Summer's hand.

She screamed.

Steam and smoke boiled away from her flesh where the water hit it, the vapors roiling up the color of old shrouds. Water splashed off her and spattered to the discolored floor, threaded with strings of blood and yellowing slime. As Gordie poured more water, steam billowed from Summer, filling the room with sour-smelling clouds that hit the walls and condensed into bitter, trickling tears. Summer screamed again, weaker, and then broke into fitful gasps.

When the steam cleared the swelling in Summer's hand had gone down and the red veins had receded, their color burning away to their more usual blue. The holes in her skin still bled, but now it was mostly blood, red and thin and spilling across the floor. She flexed her fingers. The movement forced more blood from her wounds and Gordie poured another splash of water across Summer's damaged hand. This time, no steam rose.

“Your turn,” said Gordie to Fool, moving Summer gently aside and leaning her against the bed.

“Use it on her,” Fool said. “My hand's not too bad.”

“Bullshit,” said Gordie. “Your hand's bad. It's poisoned you.”

Fool didn't argue. He was growing dizzy and sat on the floor next to Gordie, holding his arm out. Lifting it hurt, as though it had become three, four,
ten
times as heavy. It prickled fiercely and heat radiated from it like a sickness.

“Brace yourself,” said Gordie. Fool took a breath, held it, and Gordie poured.

A wave of the purest agony Fool had ever experienced crashed along his arm, blooming in a whitelight roar that he welcomed because even as it smashed through him it
cleansed,
burning away Wambwark's bitterness and poison. Strings of steam, thinner than those that had billowed away from Summer, rose above Fool and hit the ceiling. Water fell to the floor and slithered away through the rough boards, carrying with it the last of Wambwark's bilious seed.

When the pain receded, Fool found that he could move his fingers again. The hole by his knuckle was still bleeding, an open bore into his flesh, but the redness around it was fading now, the color of his hand returning to its more usual tone.

“Thank you,” Fool said.

“Pleasure,” said Gordie. “I hoped the water would be pure, holy somehow, that it would neutralize the damage.”

Fool nodded. For once, the situation had worked in their favor. He wished he could believe it would happen again.

There was a feeble groan from the corridor, breathy and distorted. Fool rose and walked to the shattered door. Wambwark had struggled into a sitting position as more bugs made their way back to it, but it was in poor shape. Its head had reformed lopsided, the temple bulging on one side and collapsed in on the other, and the chest had stitched back together unevenly, so that it was hunched forward and over. Fool, feeling the pull of his own new scar tissue and the effect it had on his posture, thought,
Good. I hope it hurts.
The demon looked up at him and hissed, maggots falling from the mouth that opened in its head, eyes gleaming dully. It reached out a short and deformed arm that wept bugs, and tried to claw at Fool. The attempt was pitiful and its arm fell back after only a few seconds of extension, coming to rest across its thighs. It lost definition for a moment, the bugs wriggling and merging with the legs, and then came together again unevenly. Wambwark hissed at Fool again.

“Don't you know when you're beaten?” said Fool. “Even now, you try to attack. We're stronger than you think, and I'm tired of it. I'm tired of you and Mr. Tap and Rhakshasas and Catarinch and that little shit that looked like a horse challenging me, threatening me. I'm tired of all of you.

“You could have left us the fuck alone. We were never your enemy, not here in Heaven anyway. You're just like all those things in the Houska and the farms and the factories in that other fucking place, so sure you can hurt us and nothing will be done and we won't fight back, and you know what? We aren't in Hell, and you aren't my master, and today I will not fucking stand for it.”

Fool drew his gun and fired, a last time, and Wambwark's head broke apart in a wet mess of maggots and slime and something that might have been blood but might equally have been dark brains, and it collapsed back against the wall. This time, it did not reform. The mass of it that remained lost its shape and fell apart, the maggots that had made it crawling away, no longer acting in unison, just a set of aimless bugs trying to escape.