The Devil's Evidence (40 page)

Soon, the road was filled with the dead, bauta and captive demons and plants, the sides not exactly equal but neither managing to gain any kind of true advantage over the other. They fought, and they weakened each other amid the stench of spilling blood and baking entrails and sap and shit and hair and fear and rage, and they carried on and on, until what was left were pale shadows of the numbers that had started the battle.

Eventually the two opposing sides had little choice but to draw apart and face each other across the churned bodies of their dead and injured, gathering themselves.

Now.

Fool finally drew his gun. He pointed at one of the demons in the Man's tattered web and fired, shooting the thing in the forehead. The back of its skull exploded and it collapsed in a shower of brain and meat. He fired again and another fell.

“Fool,” said the Man from in the field, the shape of him rising up, larger than Fool had ever seen him before. He was still human, or at least, retained a human form, a huge fat man made of greenery sitting in a field overlooking a battle like some malevolent scarecrow. “What are you doing? We had a deal.”

“We still have,” said Fool. “Come and get the Archdeacons if you want them. I'm waiting. I'm just clearing myself a path out of here. It looks like you'll have to come yourself, though; your demons can't get past the Evidence. Can you do it, do you think?” He fired again and this time a bauta fell, the Evidence Man's face torn away by the bullet.

“Fool,” hissed Mr. Tap, turning, and the Man struck.

A mass of wooden stems burst from the center of the Man's bulk and spat across the space between it and Mr. Tap. The longest of them punctured the center of Mr. Tap's back and the rest slapped across its shoulders and wrapped around the demon tightly, creating a shifting carapace of greenery about the demon's chest. The stems stretched between the Man and Mr. Tap and they
pulsed,
bulging and shivering, and then they snapped, the broken ends connected to Mr. Tap contracting, violently slamming into it, tightening and holding on to the demon's back. Mr. Tap let out a strange gasp, elongated and raw, took a single step, and fell from the vehicle to land, hard, on the road with a crack.

Nothing moved and then the mass of the Man's demons collapsed. They fell together, suddenly lifeless.
Being used this way must exhaust them,
thought Fool as he watched the bodies roll apart, remembering the trapped demons in the crates, the Man's supply. They needed to feed, needed the strength the tainted memories of the suffering Joyful gave them to survive, and they had no access to that in the war and it had killed them.
He's taken them too far. It was only being a part of the Man that's kept them alive in the battle, and now he's gone and they've died.

The Evidence Men, thinking this meant victory, sent up a collective whoop and leaped on the now-lifeless enemy, tearing into the bodies, chewing at them, worrying into bellies and chests with their tusks, gnawing them into bloodied chunks. Fool tried to ignore them, watching for Mr. Tap. He hadn't expected it to be this way, hadn't really known what to expect; he just had a sort of diffuse, helpless hope. His hand tightened on the butt of his gun, fear hot and sour in his mouth. This was it, this was the end, everything turned on what happened now.

Mr. Tap stood up.

The demon rose unsteadily. Its left arm was broken above the elbow, snapped from the landing, and was held awkwardly across its body. It turned, its head rolling, mouth opening and closing, three eyes blinking, body shaking. Fool took another step back into the heat of the Garden and then another, passing the still-recumbent Gordie. “Wait,” he hissed. Gordie didn't reply.

Mr. Tap took a step forward, unsteady. It stretched out one leg and then the other, placing each on the ground and bouncing up onto its clawed toes and then down again. It was, thought Fool, like watching a man try on new clothes. In a way, that's exactly what it was.

“Fool,” said Mr. Tap, taking another step, steadier now. The mass on its back shifted, tightening, and the next step it took was more confident.

Fool took another step back. “Hello,” he said.

“You'll suffer for this,” said Mr. Tap. Its voice was hoarse, the teeth in its throat clicking, wriggling, making its neck undulate. “You've been an interesting thing to watch and I might have stuck to the deal if you'd been fair with me, but you've not. You orchestrated this.”

“Yes,” said Fool. Another step back.

“You've made me inhabit this
thing,
” Mr. Tap said, its voice thick with disgust.

“You chose to,” said Fool. Another step. “I simply created a situation where you had to, but you always had a choice. You could have walked away. Flowed, grown away. Whatever it is you do.”

“This is your doing, Fool.”

“Yes. I suppose it is.”

“I'll kill the Archdeacons, and then I'll kill you.”

“No,” said Fool. Mr. Tap took another step forward, steadier again, and then another, faster now.

“No?”

“No. I'm stopping this now.”

Another step back.

“It isn't yours to stop, Fool.”

“As Hell's Chief Information Officer, as Commander of the Information Office, I'm stopping it. This is over. Go, now, and we might yet still be able to make a deal.”

“I think not,” said Mr. Tap. “I think not, indeed, Fool. Your time has come.”

Mr. Tap started running, ungainly but fast, covering the distance between them alarmingly quickly. Fool managed to snap off a shot, the bullet tearing into Mr. Tap's shoulder and spinning the demon that was now functioning as the Man's vehicle. It dropped to one knee, turning to glare at Fool as he took another step back and then another. Was the Man far enough in yet?

No.

“I'm going to rule Heaven and Hell,” said the Man, and his voice sounded less like Mr. Tap now and more like the voice Fool was used to, the voice of the Man of Plants and Flowers. It was hoarse, scratched, and blood spilled from the demon's mouth as it spoke and Fool thought that maybe the Man wasn't using the vocal cords properly, that he was simply forcing the demon's throat to form the words by grinding it together as it forced air through the constricted tube. It was probably painful, and he wondered if the demon could still feel or if the Man had overtaken it completely.

He felt no pity for Mr. Tap.

“You could have had a peaceful life, Fool, but that choice is closed to you now,” said the Man and rose. Blood dribbled from the wound in its shoulder and Fool fired again, but this time it was too fast, the Man was too fast, and it dodged away, still scrambling forward.

The Man hit Fool hard, its bony shoulder striking him in the stomach and tearing open the clotted wound in his side; Fool felt it rip, felt the planes of himself tear away from each other as he flailed back and fell. He lost his grip on his gun and it skittered back toward the Archdeacons, who still hadn't moved.
They're bureaucrats,
he thought, almost incoherent.
They've forgotten how to fight because they haven't had to in an age or more. They've not been threatened before, only been the ones doing the threatening.

Mr. Tap stood over Fool, staring down at him. The Man, tight on its back, had sent more growths burrowing in the demon's flesh, Fool watching as the greenery burrowed under its skin, Mr. Tap's worms crawling along the ridges and furrows, and the wounds dripped an oily blood on the ground around Fool. Under the warped skin of Mr. Tap's face the vines burrowed, fat and hungry, the worms in Mr. Tap's creased face dropping away, knocked loose by the invaders beneath.

“You've lost, Fool,” said the Man, using the demon's mouth. “This day is mine, this world is mine, and soon all the other worlds will be mine, too.”

“Fuck you,” said Gordie behind him and scattered the paper in a fat line across the path.

As Gordie threw himself down, the paper sparked and then burst into flame, the tainted earth of Hell befouling the paper and setting it afire in a violent burst that was almost white. The smoke that rose from the torn books formed into faces and words, twisting and writhing, black and dense, and it screamed and screamed and screamed.

The heat from the burning books was greater even than that of the Garden, Heaven burning in Hell, and it scorched Fool's skin and he tried to crawl away without taking his eyes from Mr. Tap. The demon, standing over Fool, took the force of the blast harder and it shrieked and shielded its eyes from the glare. It turned its back to the flames and hunched itself over, staring at Fool. Flames played across it, gaining little purchase on the thick, solid cage of the Man's flesh, burning out as quickly as they caught.

“This is it? Your plan?” the Man asked. “To trap me here behind a wall of flames? Why, Fool? Even Heaven's flames can't last forever. They'll burn low soon and then I'm free again and we revert to where we were and everything is mine.”

Fool crabbed farther back, found his gun, took hold of it, and brought it around. “No,” he said, “that was only the first part of the plan. This is the second part.”

He fired, the shot tearing into Mr. Tap's knee and spilling the demon and its rider to the ground. It thrashed, trying to stand, but Fool had pulled himself to standing and fired again, this time at its other leg. It took the shot in the thigh and the leg buckled sideways, the bone splintering, the flesh tearing. Mr. Tap screamed in the Man's voice.
It can feel pain. Good.

“And this,” said Fool, gasping and dropping to his knees, “is the third part.” He took the feather from his pocket and used it to scratch into the ground a single word written in large and jagged letters:

Mayall

Mr. Tap screamed again. The Man forced the demon to stand despite its broken limbs and it managed to achieve a kind of uneven, ungainly balance. The Man used Mr. Tap's good hand to brace its damaged knee, bent low, and began to hobble away. The fire from the books was still burning, lower now, and Mr. Tap turned toward it, the mass on its back loosening and slithering up to its shoulders. Fool fired again but his shot went wild and cracked into the low wall at the side of the path, sending chips and sparks into the air.

Mr. Tap shuffled on, approaching the wall of fire. It had burned so hot that the ground itself was buckling and bubbling, cracks zigzagging through the stone. The Man stumbled, Mr. Tap's flesh giving up the uneven battle with its injuries, and fell. It rolled and came up, still holding its knee together, blood trickling from between its long fingers. It groaned as it stood.
More pain. Good, good, it hurts good good good.

Gordie, clothes charred from being close to the burning books, the material smoking, skin and hair scorched, stepped into Mr. Tap's path.

“Move,” said Mr. Tap.

Gordie didn't immediately reply, instead tilting his head to one side and studying the rippling mass of the Man that controlled the demon. The skin of Gordie's face was red and blistered, some of the blisters popped and weeping. “You killed Summer,” he said eventually.

Mr. Tap lashed out at him but Gordie stepped back and avoided the blow easily. Separated from the main mass of his body, split away from the soil, forced to inhabit a demon's flesh, injured, the Man was slower, easier to dodge.

Weaker.

But still dangerous. The Man risked letting go of Mr. Tap's knee and clapped its hands together, and although what emerged wasn't as strong or even as fast as the weapon the demon had been able to produce in the battle, the line of filthy hair that rose from it and coiled toward Gordie was fast enough to score across his shoulder, tearing through his blackened clothes and into the flesh beneath.

Gordie, blood spraying from his wound, stumbled as Fool fired again, this time more accurately, the shot hitting Mr. Tap in the back. The momentum sent the demon staggering forward and it fell, dropping first to its knees and then over onto its side.

The fires across the path guttered, flared back up, and then guttered again, gaps appearing, greasy black smoke spewing up from the hot stone where the flames had been a moment earlier. Mr. Tap twitched, tried to rise, and then fell back, too damaged to move. The branches and stems around Mr. Tap's upper torso detached themselves from the demon, flopping away from its body in a slithering pile. Mr. Tap twitched violently again, its abandoned body leaking from masses of punctures, its head smacking onto the ground as it fitted, dying.

The Man, exposed and isolated now, hunched himself up onto thin limbs created from twisted vines and tried to scramble away. Gordie, seeing it, threw himself forward as Fool, crying from exertion and pain, clambered up and began to run.

Gordie landed on the Man and then thrashed over, jerking back so hard that he hit and then rose from the ground before pitching back down in a violent spasm. Tendrils of the Man punched into Gordie, clamping on to him, tightening around him as they burrowed under Gordie's skin. Gordie tried to tear the Man's questing fingers away, ripping at his skin and clawing at himself, screaming, his voice cracking and hoarse.

The Man tightened again, pulling himself close to Gordie so that Fool didn't dare risk firing in case he hit his friend. The Man tried to make him stand, but Gordie was still fighting him, and his control was loose. Instead, the Man forced Gordie to his knees but he twitched and leaned back, overbalancing and falling. He twitched again as the Man tried to puppet him up a second time, and then he was forced to his feet and took two wavering steps, outlined against the flames, shambling and burned, before falling, collapsing outstretched.

Fool watched as if in slow motion as Gordie's head plunged into one of the patches of flame that still burned on the path.

His hair caught fire, sizzling and shriveling back even as Fool reached him and pulled him away, beating at the fires that now flowed over his scalp and face like liquid. He was still jerking, the Man trying to make him move, arms ratcheting out, legs wheeling as he tried to find some control, more of the stems and growths punching in through Gordie's chest and neck as the Man sought extra purchase.