The Devil's Evidence (5 page)

Never ones under the control of Mr. Tap.

Had he really started believing in his own unassailability? Forgotten the way things used to be, the way it felt to be frightened all the time that you would be noticed, even if the notice was only being glimpsed at the edge of something's vision, not knowing if the glimpse would become something more? “Fool,” he murmured and had no idea if he was chastising himself or saying his name simply to keep himself real, to try to ward off an impending, unknowable disaster.

There was a clinking sound behind him, a choked rattle, and something rolled out from under Fool's seat. It knocked against one of his feet so that it turned, its direction shifting, and ended up against the train's wall. It was a canister, and an orange thread was wrapped around it.

Fool looked around, startled; several of the Information Men, seeing his reaction, looked around as well. There was no tube in the corner of the train, nowhere for the canister to have come from, and yet there it was, jolting slightly and rocking back and forth in rhythm with the train, tapping against the wall. Fool reached for it and even the demonkind Information Men stopped their surly head-bowed talking and watched him as he unscrewed the end and let the paper scroll inside it drop out. He unfurled it against his knee, smoothing it with the palm of one hand while holding it with the other. A single word,
NOW,
and an address. An address that, the orange ribbon told him, was burning.

Fool recognized the address, knew where it was; it was a boardinghouse in Eve's Harbor, one inhabited by Marys. He looked out the train's window, trying to calculate where they were and where the train would take them. Nowhere near where they needed to be. Turning back to the carriage, he said, “Get organized.”

The train wouldn't stop, had no driver, so they had to open the door and jump, one by one, landing on the street and stumbling or rolling clear of the vehicle's great, grinding metal wheels. Before he leaped, Fool looked at the muddied ground rolling past him. It looked unreal, like a fake surface, something without solidity, and he felt, for the strangest moment, that he would hit it and fall through, tear a hole in it and fall somewhere else, and then he stepped out and the shock of the landing tore up through his legs and he was staggering and one of his human Men caught him and held him upright.

“Let's go,” Fool said, and they started walking.

Walking no longer seemed fast enough; they ran.

Despite the daylight the glow of the fire was visible over the tops of the buildings from a distance away, a glimmering orange scour that stretched over the intervening roofs like moss. Closer to, they heard the sounds of the fire, a low grumble as the flames ate at the wood, and the screams of the people trapped within the building as it burned.

The conflagration came into view as they emerged from between two buildings, and even from a hundred yards Fool could feel the heat of it, feel it pressing against his face and digging its fingers under his clothing and clasping at his chest and belly. A crowd had gathered in front of the building, small and restless and helpless. Some of them were crying, others screaming, and the sound of them was another layer to the day's cacophony, the music of Hell ringing out clear and loud. There was no water nearby, no stream or river to tap, and nothing to be done for the people trapped inside.

As Fool and the Information Men arrived at the boardinghouse, someone fell from an upper window. She was burning already and left a trail of smoke as she descended, striking the ground with a noise like a sack of grain dropping. Sparks and flames danced out from the impact, spiraling away into the air. Screams rose and someone ran out from the crowd, trying to reach the burning person, but they were driven back by the heat, choking and moaning.

Another dying Mary fell, or leaped, from a window and spiraled to the ground, coming to rest with a dark and final thud.

“Are any of you demons of flame?” Fool asked his troops. “Any of you?”

The demons among his Men looked at him. None replied. Orobas turned its back, ears twitching.

“Can any of you withstand flame?” asked Fool, desperate. How many Marys, how many
people,
were gathering in the windows of the building? There seemed to be hundreds, all imploring him to do something, to rescue them somehow. Some of the glass panes still had not broken, and faces were pressed up against the glass, distorted by the sheer mass of them, eyes weeping, mouths open, screams eaten by the fires. In other windows the glass had gone and the Marys were leaning out, arms outstretched and glass-torn, and their screams Fool heard, heard as though they were becoming the only sound in Hell, screaming, crying for help. One woman, hair on fire, leaned too far and she, too, fell. The sound of her scream cutting off as she hit the ground was like a blade across Fool's ears.

“None of you?” he asked, and again there was no response. He turned to the building, looking around to see if there was something,
anything,
that might help, but no, nothing. Fool stepped toward the building, pushing his way between the crowd, coughing as the heat dried the air in his mouth, but had to stop. It was too hot, the heat too solid for him to move any farther forward. Another Mary fell, this time from a lower-floor window. She flipped over as she dropped to the ground, naked and alight, leaving greasy strings of smoke behind her in the air. She carried on burning after she landed, the fall not enough to kill her, a triangle of flame flickering between the cleft of her legs, scalp raging with violent orange fires. She rolled over and managed to crawl three or four uneven feet and then collapsed sideways, arms outstretched, and the smell of burning hair and roasting, bubbling fat that reached Fool made him turn away and swallow down a mouthful of bile. He bent forward in the hope that he could keep the retch inside him, swallowing the sourness in his mouth as hot and bitter saliva spurted against the inside of his cheeks. Behind him, the sound of bodies hitting the earth was a constant tattoo, as though a heavy storm was brewing.

In the end, Fool sent his troops back to the House and watched the boardinghouse burn without them; there was nothing else he could do.

It took hours. The flames blackened the wood as the Marys inside screamed, most choosing to try to jump from the windows in the hope of escape. Several made it far enough from the flames to be gathered into the crowd's embrace, but their wounds were terrible, huge weeping blisters that burst as their skin continued cooking and shrinking, blackened scabs flaking away from their flesh to reveal raw fat and muscle below, and they died not long after their falls. At one point several members of the crowd tried to get close enough to catch the falling women, holding a blanket out between them, but the heat drove them back as the edge of the blanket singed its way to blackness and they had to abandon the attempt and simply watch as the fires raged and grew and swallowed.

Finally, the building's roof collapsed, sending a huge tongue of flame and grand swirls of burning debris into the air, and not long after one of its walls fell in and then there was nothing but fire and heat and the smell of scorched air and death, and Fool walked away.

He had gone perhaps half a mile when he needed to sit down at the side of the road, putting his head in his hands and resting them on his knees and weeping. His tears fell to the dust, dark pearls between his feet growing opaque as they rolled in the dirt before vanishing. People moved past him, uncaring, none of them stopping or acknowledging him. He wept, alone, and was glad of his solitude.

When he looked up, two of Mr. Tap's Evidence Men were staring at him from across the street, and he wondered what rule he might be breaking. Something to do with sitting still? With crying? With simply existing? As they approached him Fool rose, still crying, brushing the dirt from his uniform, and walked away.

He walked without thinking, occasionally glancing over his shoulder. The Evidence Men followed him for several minutes, seemingly undecided about what to do, and then they got bored or found someone else to focus their attentions on and left him alone. He walked on, trying to tread his thoughts into order, moving out into the farmland beyond the residential areas, passing fields in which scrawny beasts grazed, fattening themselves for slaughter. He walked, and gradually his tears slowed.

Eventually, the heat of the day became oppressive, and Fool looked for shade, seeing a copse of trees ahead of him. Where was he? he wondered as he approached them. Somewhere in the center of Hell, he thought; if he carried on walking, he would eventually reach the Flame Garden, east would bring him back around to the Houska, and if he turned west he would reach the Mount and the tunnel that led to Heaven. Thinking of Heaven made him look up, but the city in the sky was obscured by the daylight. He saw a pale glimmer that might have been towers or spires hiding behind the light and then he was under the trees and in the shade.

It was cooler here, the fragmented shade lying across the ground in an uneven pattern of light and dark, and Fool sat down and let his head fall to his drawn-up knees, no longer crying but tired, so very tired. He took a deep breath, smelling baked earth and rotten leaves, and thought. Ultimately, he supposed, there was little he could do but return to the Information House and carry on, to try to find whatever threads there were to be found, to try to do his duty until Hell decided upon his fate.

“Fool.”

Fool jerked his head up off his knees and looked around; there was no one there.

“Fool,” again, and the voice was almost familiar, as though someone whom Fool had known years earlier and miles away but had mostly forgotten was speaking. It was soft, as though made from two pieces of leather being carefully rubbed together, his name drawn out in a long, careful syllable. It made him think of the time of the Fallen, made images jumble in his mind, of something tilting out from a wall and collapsing down, of things being eaten or taken from the air, of a wide and toothed mouth opening by his hand and removing the feather from him.

Of something dead, of something alive.

“Fool,” a third time, and this time Fool replied.

“Who is this?”

“Don't you remember me? Fool, I'm disappointed,” said the voice, and then Fool
did
recognize the voice, the memory crashing back in.

The Man of Plants and Flowers.

Fool stood quickly, hand going to his gun; the Man was dangerous and not to be trusted, despite the help he had given Fool in the past. The ground at his feet rippled as something moved under the cover of dead leaves and then they were tumbling aside as the grass struggled free, weaving upward, knocking aside the mulch. Above him, the branches of the trees began to twist, bending with the creak of straining wood, coming down in front of him and wrapping around each other, forming a face made of stem and leaf.

“Fool,” said the Man for a fourth time. “It's good to finally speak to you again.”

“You're dead,” said Fool but knew he wasn't. That last time he and the Man had spoken had the gloss of a dream now, something half remembered and disjointed. Had the Man really spoken to him after the death of the Fallen? Yes, yes he had, and yet Fool had then forgotten him and he didn't know why.

“I'm impossible to kill, Fool,” said the Man, “but I have let myself recede into the background for a while, yes.”

“You told me you weren't dead,” said Fool, “but I didn't remember after. Why not?”

The branches shifted and there was a noise like tearing cloth.
He's laughing,
thought Fool,
laughing at me, laughing at the little dense Fool.
He drew his gun, raised it, lowered it again, feeling foolish. There was no one to point it at.

“Fool, you've done better than most in Hell, but you still don't understand it, do you? The whole of the Hierarchies think I'm dead, the Bureaucracy thinks I'm dead, thanks to you and your investigation and the intervention of that glorious angel, and if they think I'm dead then I'm
dead
. You forgot me because if the Bureaucracy doesn't acknowledge me then I have no reality here, and it has suited me to leave it that way. I'm still here, though, I've been here all the time, still the Man of Plants and Flowers, and I'm still
everywhere
.”

The Man's voice sounded weak, the words not fully formed by the branches.
He's lying,
thought Fool,
or at least not telling me the full truth. Whatever he was, he's different now from what he used to be, and whatever the angel did to him has taken him time to get over, weakened him in a way I don't think he expected.
Aloud, he asked, “What have you been doing?”

“Nothing, Fool,” replied the Man, and he was laughing again now, a raspy wooden chortle that filled the glade about Fool. “I found a secluded place, a little island of solitude, and had a rest and simply considered my options. I've enjoyed being nowhere, Fool. It's been fun.”

“But now you're back?”

“I'm back, and thought I'd say hello.”

“Why say hello? To me, I mean. Why not keep being dead?”

“Why do I do anything, Fool? Because it amuses me, because
you
amuse me. I enjoyed our chats, and hope to rekindle them one day if circumstances permit. Besides, you helped me die, so I decided I owed you a favor. Something is coming, Fool, coming for you.”

“What's coming?”

The grass writhed, tangling over Fool's shoes and sending slimy strands up inside his trouser legs to caress his ankles. The branches hanging in front of his face shook as they formed the words, “Something big, Fool, big and terrible and dangerous. Watch out, little Fool, for where you are going even I cannot help you.”

The branches had untangled, springing back up into the canopy above him, and the grass had fallen back from his feet. The Man had gone.

“Fool.”

“Yes?” Thinking it was the Man back for one last utterance, hoping that it was, panic gathering in his chest, and wanting to run.