The Devil's Evidence (32 page)

“How about this?” said Summer, coming around the corner of the chapel and holding something up for them to see.

At first Fool couldn't tell what she was holding. It was swinging in her hand and, by the look on her face, it wasn't pleasant; she was carrying it away from her, and when it swung back in toward her she twisted away from it. What was it? A bag? A dead bird?

No, none of those things, he realized; it was a demon.

It was small and dead. Summer was holding it by its hands and feet so that it was bent double, hanging loose and swaying at the end of her outstretched arm.

“It's a dead demon,” said Gordie.

“It's not,” said Summer.

“It is,” said Fool. “Look at it, Summer. Fuck, if Heaven sees that, it'll confirm every suspicion they've got. ‘This is Hell's doing,' they'll say. ‘Look, we have a dead demon as proof!' ”

“It's
not,
” said Summer.

“It is, Summer, it's a demon. A dead demon, not a thing from outside,” Fool said, and then carried on, almost to himself, “I was wrong. This was Hell all along.”
Little confused Fool, little wrong Fool.

“Fool, will you look,” said Summer loudly and tossed the demon at him. The thing spun in the air, lazy and flailing, and its intestines spilled from it as it spun, fluttering down to the earth below. It hit the ground by Fool's feet and slithered toward him, still spilling itself, and Fool took an involuntary step back. His heels dug into air and he teetered on the edge of a grave before Gordie gripped his arm and pulled him forward, stabilizing him.

“You weren't wrong,” said Gordie when he'd let go of Fool's arm and knelt down by the dead demon. He started pushing through the thing's guts, now lying in a pale fan behind it, his fingers turned and teasing at the intestines.

No, not intestines, not guts, something else, something dry and pale, something that rustled and crinkled. Something that fluttered in the wind, rose up off the ground, and danced and dropped and spun.

Paper. The demon was filled with paper.

Fool knelt as well, took hold of the demon, and lifted it. It was light and came up from the ground easily, hanging limp in his hand. As he lifted it, it unfurled and more paper fell from it, spilling into a messy pile at Fool's feet before being picked up by the gusting wind and leaping away from him out of his reach. He took hold of the demon's clawed feet and small, clawed hands and pulled it flat and stretched it in front of him. Flaps of its skin sagged away from it, dangling in a parody of angels' wings, but the thing had no real shape. “What?” Fool asked aloud and then saw, really saw, and dropped the demon with a cry of disgust.

The thing had been hollowed out and its skin used to carry the unearthed books.

The demon had been split up its back, along the line of its spine, and the whole of its chest cavity had been opened up and the contents besides the spine itself removed, the ribs and intestines and heart and lungs all gone, assuming it ever had them. The job had been done inexpertly and the inside of the little thing's skin was still crusted with gobbets of flesh, now dried and dark. Paper had stuck to the blood and lined the thing like clumsy decoration, rustling and crackling as Fool poked at the body with his toe cap, flipping it over and over and feeling a curious mix of disgust and sorrow. Even demons didn't deserve to be treated like this.

Its eyes had fallen in, were still attached to the skin but popped and dry now like old fruit skin left in the sun, and several joints of its spine had been snapped to make it bend back on itself. Fool forced himself to pick it up again, not liking the way its flesh felt in his hands, and folded it up. Its skin had been stretched and torn, the holes placed so that the thing's hands and feet could be used to keep the skin up, turning it into the sides of the makeshift bag. Its head hung down limply, staring back at itself as though shocked by what had been done to it. The back of its head was crushed, and gray brain matter bulged from the wound, dry and old. It stank, the rotten stench of its dead flesh making Fool's eyes water. He put it back onto the ground and wiped his hands on the wet grass.

“I found it behind the wall,” said Summer. “They needed something to carry the books in, so they used it as a bag. It's proof, Fool; demons wouldn't do this to other demons.”

“No,” Fool agreed, because Summer was right; demonkind violence was only ever toward humans, toward the Sorrowful.

Could this be the Evidence, then? Was this what they did? No, they simply vanished things into the shadows and never returned them, and besides, they were in Hell, not Heaven. And what had Mr. Tap said, that demons were vanishing that the Evidence hadn't taken? This was the work not of Hell but of something else, some other terrors attacking Hell, killing its denizens.

This was the things from places outside of everywhere, breaking in.

Yes,
yes,
because that's what this was, it had to be, two sets of attacks carried out at once, the assaults on Hell and the assaults on Heaven, one fueling the other, parallel lines of savagery and violence. This little thing and how many others taken from Hell and used in Heaven, Israfil and the Joyful and the books taken from Heaven and used where? Used how?

It didn't matter. The
where
and the
why
could come later, after he stopped the war, because if the war went ahead, so many would die and both sides would be distracted, weaker, ripe for a head-on assault rather than these sneaky, secretive stabs.

“Gordie, get one of the cloths from a grave,” said Fool, “one that's not too badly damaged. Put the demon in it and some of the damaged books. Have you got the scale and the claw?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Put them in as well, we'll take it all. We'll show Rhakshasas first, get him to understand. If he listens to us and to the Man, he may help us persuade the rest of the Bureaucracy and might be able to speak to Heaven, to Mayall or whomever it is he needs to speak to. To get them to come together and listen.”

“Will that be enough?”

“I don't know,” said Fool. “But we have to try. At the very least, we have to try.”

“There's something we haven't thought about,” said Summer. “How do we get back to Hell?”

“The angels told me that the Flame Garden was the link between all the worlds, but I don't have time to find Heaven's version of it, the Garden of Earth and Air, and I don't know how to get into it. Even if I could find it, I don't know if we can travel those roads only if we have angels or demons with us, so there's only one way to go.”

“How?”

“The tunnel. We have to go through the tunnel.”

They gathered up the evidence, putting the demon in the bag first and then covering it with the ripped remains of the religious texts. Fool knelt and filled his pockets with torn paper for reasons he wasn't completely sure of, and then turned and watched as Gordie took the scale from his pocket, looking at it carefully, lifting it to the sun, and rotating it slowly. Fool watched him, the question unasked, waiting. Gordie's brain was analytical, kept facts in a viselike grip, but sometimes it took him time to make connections.

“There's something,” he said after a minute. “I don't know what, but this is strange. It's odd.”

“Odd?”
Again, odd.

“Odd,” the man repeated helplessly. “I can't work out why, though.”

“Gordie, it's from outside,” said Summer. “Of course it's odd.”

“Maybe,” said Gordie and dropped the scale into the bag and then tied it around the rip so that the contents would stay safe. The bag was large enough to still have long strips of canvas loose after being tied shut, and Gordie used these to fashion a clumsy strap so that he could hang the bag over his shoulder. When Fool tried to take it from him, Gordie simply shook his head and looked at how Fool was standing, still twisted and hunched, pulled around by the badly healed scarring across his belly. Fool didn't have the time to argue, so he simply nodded and turned, heading for the tunnel.

The ground between the chapel and the tunnel's entrance was now thick with blue flowers. It was as though, now that Heaven had allowed itself to see and acknowledge the intrusion, the flowers could bloom fully. Some were as high as Fool's knees and left clinging oily streaks across his lower legs as he pushed through them, and the smell of them was horrible, thick and cloying and sick. He heard Summer choking as they made their way to the tunnel, with its flanks of guardian angels, and when he turned he saw her vomit across the flowers. What emerged from her mouth was little more than a thin gruel of bile and saliva, and he wondered if she and Gordie had eaten at all since their rebirth.

When had he last eaten? He thought of food, of the clean water he had used to wash himself and the way his hair had felt after he had used the soap on it, the way it had squeaked as he ran his fingers through it, and then realized he had stopped walking. Summer and Gordie were looking at him, and it was their turn to have unanswered questions written in their expressions.

“It's nothing,” said Fool, thinking,
Is this how it works? You get distracted, fall into a reverie that becomes a daydream that becomes a sleep? Forget? Is this how it is in Heaven, the grandest distraction there is?

No. No, I have to focus, I have to avoid the distractions. I have a war to stop.
He started walking again, one foot in front of the other, aching body finding as comfortable a rhythm as possible, concentrating on the angels ahead of them. None of them turned as they approached and they did not stop Fool as he reached the rear line of them and started to thread his way among them. They glowed, pale and low, in the gathering dark, their feathers ruffled by the wind, their hair blowing across the faces and lifting from their scalps in untidy halos. They were identical, statues carved by the same hand to the same beautiful design, their arms and chests muscled and their bellies taut with strength. They wore nothing and, like Benjamin, their groins were feathered, the overlapping lines of them sweeping down from just below their navels to the tops of their thighs. Their eyes gleamed, violet and bright, but none of them turned their gaze upon the humans in their midst.

Fool made his way among them, careful not to touch any of them as he slipped between them, seeing that Summer and Gordie were taking the same precautions behind him. It took several delicate minutes to get through the ranks, but he eventually found himself at the tunnel's edge; the closest angels were around three feet back from the lip and Fool was able to walk out into the space unchallenged.

“Why aren't they stopping us?” asked Summer, emerging from between two of the angels and joining Fool, Gordie behind her.

“Because we're not supposed to be here, so they don't see us,” said Fool. “It's the same as it was with the bodies, with Benjamin and Israfil.”

“No,” said Benjamin from above them, “in this you are wrong, Thomas Fool. It is not that they do not see you, they do; it is that they were created for a single purpose, to stop anything emerging from this hole, and until you try to do that, you are of no concern to them.”

The angel was hanging in the air above the hole, wings flapping slowly to keep him aloft. Against the clouds his body gleamed, his wings perfect arcs, his arms low and folded across his stomach, and his legs apart, the smaller wings at his ankles beating easily. Fool couldn't help but notice that the wings on one leg did not beat in the same rhythm as the other leg; each pair worked independently of the other, correcting the angel's position whenever the wind tried to turn him. Benjamin let himself drop so that, although still over the tunnel's mouth, his head was at Fool's level and said, “Thomas Fool, I have something to say.”

Here it is, then,
thought Fool.
The end of it. They've watched us long enough, seen what they needed to see, and now Benjamin has been sent to gather us back up, to bring us back into the fold, little lost fools that we are.
His hand dropped to his gun and then, realizing how hopeless it would be, he moved it away again. “Well then,” he said, dropping his chin to his chest and sighing, weary, “let's get on with it.”

“You are wrong about the angels here, but about the bodies you are correct. About the help that you were given, or rather not given, you are correct. About me, and about Israfil, you are correct. Thomas Fool, I have come to apologize and to offer myself as your servant.”

It wasn't what Fool expected nor, judging by the surprised gasps that came from Summer and Gordie, what his companions expected either. Fool raised his head and looked at the angel, still bobbing gently in the air above the tunnel, the expression on his face one of contrite concern, a faint smile playing around his lips.

“I was wrong,” said the angel, his voice calm yet clear against the still-rising wind. “We have become complacent, I think. I have become complacent, too confident in myself, and have committed the sins of pride and hubris. I would make amends, Thomas Fool, if you tell me what amends need making.”

“I need to stop this war,” said Fool. It was getting colder, his breath misting before him as he spoke, “or at least, I need to
try
to stop this war. I need to get to Hell, to speak to Rhakshasas.”

“And he will stop it?”

“I don't know. It depends how much they want it—Heaven and Hell, I mean. If the war is part of some bigger plan that we're only small cogs within, then it won't stop no matter what I do, but I have to try. People are already dying, and going to war over a mistake is going to mean more people die.”

“They are already dead,” said Benjamin, “and those in Hell are sinners. Perhaps they deserve the punishment?”

How could Fool explain? That no one in Hell knew their sin, only that they had sinned somewhen before, and Hell's punishment was the one of injustice in the moment, of not knowing, and that this was fair in the long run because the atonement of sin could take any form? Fool had come to understand it over the past months, since the Fallen, that what made Hell
Hell
was precisely the sense that everyone there was being punished, knew that the punishment was just but felt its injustice because of the blank space in the center of themselves where memories should be. Death in the middle of a war between Heaven and Hell would not be fair, it would be
unjust
. What he said, though, was simply, “I have no choice. It's my job.”

“Yes,” said Benjamin. “And I will help however I can because I have said I will and because amends must be made. Please, tell me what you want me to do.”

“I need to get to Hell,” said Fool.

“We cannot go to the Garden,” said Benjamin. “The link between the worlds has been, at least in part, closed while the conflict plays out. We can use the tunnel, however, although I don't know where in Hell it comes out. I can take you as far as the border but won't be able to enter Hell with you. Without the protection of the Estedea, I would burn the moment I emerged into its atmosphere.”

“That's fine. Thank you,” said Fool, and at that moment the clouds above Benjamin started to weep.

It wasn't rain. What dropped from the clouds were fat white flakes that plunged down in great swoops, looping around each other, thicker and thicker and thicker until the air was filled with them. Where they landed on Fool's skin they burned with cold, melting slowly. He held a hand out, marveling as the flakes hit his exposed skin and collapsing, shifting from crystalline white shapes to tiny puddles that trickled away.

“What is it?” asked Summer, her head back and her mouth open. She stuck a tongue out and a flake landed on it, melting to nothing.

“It's water!” she exclaimed. “Water! It's so cold, but it's water.”

“It's snow,” said Benjamin. “The sky is reflecting the moods around the tunnel. Do you not have snow in Hell?”

“No,” said Gordie, head also back. Snow had gathered across his forehead, was crusting his eyebrows and catching in his hair, was decorating him with flickers of whiteness. Fool suspected he looked the same and brushed at the snow that had clung to his jacket. His hand came away streaked with pink as the snow melted and drew the dried blood in his skin back to liquid. He shivered, cold.

“It's beautiful,” said Summer and she was right, it was beautiful. “I wish I could draw it.”

Gordie reached up and brushed snow from Summer's hair. “You're beautiful,” he said, so quietly that Fool thought only he and Summer had heard him. She didn't reply but reached up and took his hand and drew it to her face, kissing his fingertips.

“Thank you,” she said.

“We should go,” said Benjamin and flew to them, opening his arms. He took Gordie and Summer into his right arm and Fool in his left, shifting a few times to get the weight of them set to his satisfaction.

“Wait,” said Fool, looking around. He raised his hands to his ears and reached inside them. His fingertips brushed against what he sought and he pulled out the two pieces of Benjamin's dried spittle carefully. Closing his eyes, he heard that music again, the endless song of songs, the voices and timpani and lute and mandolin and piccolo and everything else as well. Like the snow, it was beautiful, filled the sky inside his head. It was, he suspected, the last time he would hear it.

Finally, Fool opened his eyes. “I'm ready,” he said.

Benjamin flapped his wings, once, gently. They lifted from the ground, rose, and then moved out over the hole. Its black maw opened to greet them, and Fool had to swallow a surprisingly large lump of sorrow as he looked around. His last view of Heaven was of a motionless rank of beautiful, somber angels surrounded by falling snow and, behind them, the chapel of all faiths standing alone and mute in the storm light.

They descended.

Fool had expected the flight to be choppy, to feel the movement of Benjamin's wings, but he did not. Although he could hear the wings' beating and feel the slight ripple of air caused by their flapping, Benjamin held them close and they dropped smoothly and easily.

Once they were below the opening of the tunnel with its fringe of exposed roots and dying grass, darkness crept after them. Away from the sky and the whiteness of the snow, the only light came from Benjamin himself and it illuminated only the walls around them, so that it began to feel to Fool as though they were traveling in a bubble of glimmering, pale glow. The tunnel's walls were dark, rough earth that glinted slightly as though it had melted and then solidified into a glaze, and although Fool tried his best to look for them, he saw no sign of the things from outside. Once, he thought he saw the blackness of the wall bulge as they passed, but he couldn't be sure, and soon the place above them was lost to view. The air warmed so that their breath no longer misted in front of them, and the silence that hung about them was thick and furred.

“Won't you get in trouble for helping us?” asked Summer.

“No,” Benjamin replied. “Angels who get in trouble Fall, and that's not something I'll do. I'm no rebel or challenger. I have permission to do this.”

“From whom?” asked Gordie, echoing the question that had been forming on Fool's tongue.

“Mayall and the Malakim,” said Benjamin. The tunnel kinked slightly and they spun as the angel corrected his drop to take them away from the wall. They were so deep now that it was no longer soil they moved through but rock, fissured and cracked and with tiny white roots growing in the cracks.

“They know you're here?”

“Of course. I am a creature of permissions, Miss Summer. I cannot act without instruction. The Malakim told me that, if I felt it necessary, I could help Thomas, and Mayall concurred. I have to join the army when I return, and I shall do so gladly, knowing I have carried out my duty, that I have balanced things as far as I can.

“Now, may I ask you a question?”

“Of course,” said Summer.
Miss Summer,
Fool thought and smiled in the darkness. He could no longer see the walls and had the sense that the space around them had opened up and that, at the same time, it had closed in, so that he could reach out and touch its edges if he wanted to.

We're not traveling through earth or rock anymore,
he thought.
We're traveling through nothing, through the spaces between the worlds.
He hoped Benjamin's grip was firm.

“Thomas Fool has two names yet you do not, neither you nor Master Gordie. Why is this?”