Affliction (Hellsong: Infidels: Cris Book 1) Page 10

  I hear footsteps. I’ve learned to recognize how the old man’s boots sound. One makes more of a clop than the other.

  My stomach rumbles with anticipation of the meal.

  “I don’t deserve you, innkeep,” I tell him as he enters.

  He’s got a bullet wound in his chest. A bad one. It’s no longer bleeding. His eyes are empty, his skin beyond pale. He’s not alive. Corpses are like this sometimes. They just go on doing whatever they did in life. Like that girl in the palace who was scrubbing floors even after she died. She’d scrubbed so much that even the shadow of her soul knew not what else to do with its existence.

  It’s the same for the old man. He came here every day, and now he’s done so even while dead. He has a bag of food in his hand and a canteen of fresh water around his neck. His body hands them to me. A Devil man must have shot him while he was on his way. I guess someone finally got tired of him.

  I stand up and use the knife to put him out of his misery. I guide his body to the temple floor. He lies there, unmoving, as I clean and sheath the blade. I take the canteen and sip it. The water is fresh and cool. I find a pistol in his belt and remove it. It’s a colt revolver. He’s got three bullets loaded in it, and that’s it.

  The pain in my right leg seems like it’s completely gone.

  I strap the Old Lady across by back and holster the innkeeper’s gun.

  I nod at Caesar. He understands.

  I draw the knife out of its sheath and I swear I can hear the ring of the blade. With careful quick motions, I carve the sign of the infidels into the palm of my hand. First the trapezoid, then the triangle within it, and then the two lines going through it. Then I wrap my hand up with a long white strip of cloth. It reminds me of how I used to wrap my hands before putting on boxing gloves. I feel energy pouring through my body. My stomach growls with bloodlust. My heart beats with a frantic rhythm.

  I walk outside the temple and look across the city. The workers have begun their smelting and the smoke is filtering up toward the dimly lit ceiling. Parts of the haze light up with sudden flashes of light coming out from the nearly dead Core.

  It starts now. Aiden, I’m coming.

  The hoodie wearing Devil man moves through the darkened city streets, his eyes on the red glow of the smelters coming from near the Core. He picks his way over a pair of fallen bodies, bodies which the old man would be picking up right now if he were still alive.

  The Devil man kneels down by them and begins to loot one. He snatches the baseball cap off of one’s head, eyes narrowing as he inspects it. For some reason the hat doesn’t meet his liking, and he tosses it aside. Then the Devil man turns out the pockets of the body’s old world jeans. Nothing. He rifles through the jacket, checking the inside pocket. He retrieves a packet of what looks like corpsedust. A grin spreads across his face. I doubt he uses the corpsedust himself, he’s probably got access to the better shit from his boss, but it’s likely that he has buyers in the outskirt chambers.

  He pulls out a pouch and adds the packet of corpsedust to his own. He stuffs it back into his hoodie.

  It has to start somewhere, so it starts with him.

  The innkeeper’s revolver is a heavy clunky thing in my hand. I raise it as I approach the Devil man from behind. The clicking of the gun’s metal causes him to freeze.

  “Hey,” he says, “if you want the corpsedust, you can have it.”

  “Funny enough, I do want it.”

  He nods, placing the pouch down beside himself. “I don’t want to waste a bullet, you understand. Bullet’s worth much more. Hopefully you don’t want to either. Besides, there’s a guarded exit right near here. You’ll bring the Devil’s patrol this way. You don’t want that.”

  I walk a few more steps toward him while keeping the old man’s piece leveled at the back of his head. “Actually, that’s exactly what I want.”

  He freezes again, then, slowly, he turns his head to the side so that he can see me. “Infidel . . .” he breathes.

  The old man’s piece kicks hard when I pull the trigger. The bullet crashes through his skull spraying blood across the stones like paint on a Jackson Pollock canvas. The body twitches for a moment, and then rises. He doesn’t turn into a Wight. I guess he was using the corpsedust. At first I think to kill him again, but then I remember that I’m supposed to be an Infidel Friend. Infidels don’t waste resources.

  “I got him I got him!” I shout in a high pitched voice. “Come quick, I’ve caught the infidel!”

  I hear the calls of the Devil men echoing throughout the Heart as they come in my direction. The ballcap covers the worst of the bloody mess that was the guy’s head. I’ve put the old man’s piece, now empty, in his hand. As a corpse, he hasn’t figured out that it’s not loaded yet. He keeps pointing it at me and pulling the trigger. I’ve got the Old Lady slung around his neck. It just wouldn’t look right if I was carrying it.

  For my part, I stand before him, apparently tied. His rope is around my midsection, but my arms are outside of it, pulled behind my back. The other end of the rope is knotted around his right wrist. Because he’s a corpse, he keeps trying to get closer to me. I keep ahead of him at a slow walk. It is in this way that we move through the city.

  I’ve got his Glock in my right hand with my sleeve pulled over it.

  He’s a fresh corpse, so he still tries to breathe every once and a while. Also, his step is incredibly uncertain. At times I think he’s going to fall over, but as we move he gains coordination. The calls of one group are getting closer. They’re probably wondering why my “guard” isn’t calling back to them. They’ll find out in a minute.

  I hear laughter and some hoots of celebration behind me. “Good job, Allen!”

  “I coulda sworn that fucker’d left.”

  There noise is enough to cause the corpse to stop. It turns around, and I do too.

  There is a moment of pause.

  Using the corpse as a shield I gun them down. They didn’t have their weapons drawn, but one manages to draw and take a shot before I kill him. It streaks off somewhere to my right, ricocheting along the houses there. Only one rises again as a corpse. I put him down.

  We continue walking.

  “Allen, what happened?”

  I look back over my shoulder. This group is more cautious. A couple have their hands on their weapons, but no one has drawn them yet as it would be bad form to point a gun at their own man.

  They haven’t made enough noise to distract the corpse, so Allen’s undead body only has eyes for me. He keeps stumbling along, pulling the trigger.

  “Oh shit!” one shouts. “I think Allen’s . . .”

  I shoot him first. One Devil man scampers off between two buildings. I drag my struggling shield to one side and empty the magazine. A bullet slams into the corpse’s shoulder sending him reeling to the ground. I drop to the ground too, yanking the Old Lady out of her holster and firing.

  She’s got an untampered round of buckshot in her, one of the few I have left. It blasts down the last Devil man I can see. He and one other rise again. So, for that matter, does the corpse they called Allen. Black blood is pouring out of his shoulder, but it doesn’t look like he’s finished.

  “You okay there?” I ask the corpse as it tries to claw at me.

  I look for the one that ran down the street, cocking the Old Lady. She’s got a traditional slug in her. After that, it’s four straight shells of lightrock buckshot.

  At first I thought the fleeing Devil man was still looking to kill me, but I hear his shouts. He’s already a few streets away, and his voice is getting more distant.

  “It’s a trick! Allen’s a corpse. The Infidel Friend is pretending to be his prisoner.”

  I take off the lasso and toss it around one of the other undead. I pull it taut and then lug Allen to his feet.

  I have not run in quite some time, and my first few strides are shaky. However, soon I find my balance, and the streets feel firm beneath my feet as I sprint for the Cor
e.

  I pause by the burnt out shell of the palace. Other nearby buildings had also been consumed after the slaughter which had so thoughtlessly destroyed the Prince, his harem, and Twiggy while sparing the thin man and Hagar. Shitty how that worked out.

  Smoke is settling down onto the streets from the clouds which mask the ceiling. Looking up at the moment, one could actually think that this cavern is open to the sky, so thick is the pollution spewing up from the smelters. Here and there the last flashes of the dying lightrock illuminate the haze. Gunshots ring out across the city. Someone is firing, but it’s nowhere near me. There are some more gunshots—return fire.

  At first I feel rather lucky, but then again, the Archdevil does load up his men with hallucinogens. They’re bound to shoot at each other sooner or later.

  The light of the Heart is now a deep ruddy red. The poor visibility gives me a feeling of confidence. It’s easy to see someone moving, but hard to identify who they are. This gives me a strong advantage because they have to recognize me to know I’m their enemy. I don’t have to bother looking very closely. Everyone here is my enemy.

  I’m getting close to the smelters.

  The workers look exactly as they always have, their heads and eyes lowered as they complete their tasks—though perhaps they aren’t working as hard today as when I’d seen them before. The Devil men, however, are damn jumpy. I see them turn their heads toward that area of the city where the gunshots had come from. Surely they are afraid now. More than that, the first reports of my being defeated were in error. Even if I’m killed, I can rest assured that some of them will be nervous for a while.

  There aren’t that many of them, either, and perhaps their lack of numbers and attention explains the lackadaisical pace of the workers. There are three entrances to the Core that are open and lit right now. Each has a trio of Devil men there, crouching behind cover, their weapons held at the ready. Even at this distance and through the smoke, I can recognize the marble man at the middle entrance. He has no need to take cover, so he stands arrogantly, his head turning back and forth as he looks out onto the city.

  The Devil men are all similarly dressed, each with a black t-shirt, though many wear jackets and other clothes over them. The miners, on the other hand, have no uniform. All their clothes are ragged and rotten, however, they appear to be wearing whatever they’d had on when the Devil enslaved them. They are only really distinguishable by their downcast glances and hopeless demeanor.

  Workers pour in and out of the Core. Those headed in carry empty baskets. Those headed out carry ones full of glowing lightrock. Fearlessly, I walk amidst the mess of smelters and pick up a pair of baskets. I put my sidearm and the Old Lady in one and then put the second basket on top of it. With my eyes low and my shoulders slumped, I join the line that passes by the marble man. I do this because it’s the entrance they took me through before, and it would be nice to have a point of reference for the maze that is the Core’s passages. Still, this is pressing my luck. For some reason it seems like the marble man is more likely to recognize my face than the rest of them.

  Maybe there’s still some corpsedust in my system.

  Maybe the isolation of the last few weeks has driven me mad.

  Maybe I want to die.

  One hundred yards to go.

  The men in the line around me don’t even notice that I don’t belong. I feel like I’m part of them. We’re like the veins of lightrock in a way, except instead of creating light, we’re creating darkness. I guess if you’d call Maylay Beighlay alive, we’re the cancer.

  Fifty yards.

  A pair of men are running in from the city. They are headed right toward my entrance. Of course they are, they’ve got to report to the marble man. It takes effort for me to keep my eyes down, but I manage.

  Twenty-five.

  I hear one of the men reporting. “ . . . some friendly fire. Patrick reported that the Infidel Friend was using Allen as bait. Brill gunned down two men, tied together. One was Allen. We think we’ve got him, sir. Still waiting to hear from Brill though.”

  The marble man looks up and around, completely alert. Damn. I look to one of the other lines. Maybe I could switch over. The black gaze of the wight swings this way, so I duck my head and keep walking. I look up again, and his eyes have moved on, but I don’t dare cross the open gap between myself and another line of workers.

  Suddenly the Devil men, including the marble man, snap to attention. They look back into the cave. The slick, shiny figure of the armored Archdevil appears there. I’m not ready to fight him. Certainly not here. I feel my chest tighten up. Why the hell did I pick this line? Of course if the Devil were to come, it would be to the entrance guarded by the marble man.

  The lines get closer up ahead, and I reconsider making the attempt to cross over. The closest one is still about fifty feet away though. Maybe I could fall and fake an injury? But I don’t dare do that, or anything else to call attention to myself. I feel like a train car on tracks heading for a broken bridge. I can’t stop. I can’t change direction. All I can do is march forward inexorably toward my destruction.

  I feel the Devil’s effect on the line. Their shoulders slump a bit farther. Their posture becomes meeker. Perhaps they too can feel the pressure of the Devil’s will. Perhaps they believe that the Devil can see their thoughts. They don’t dare dream of rebellion, lest he pick it out of their minds and use it to justify some horrid punishment.

  SPEAK.

  And I almost do, but the Devil is giving the order to his scout.

  Ten feet.

  I’m so close I can smell the sweat of the reporting scout. Even with my eyes down I can see the pale marble man. I can’t make out his face, but his posture shows me that he hasn’t even bothered to look at me. I walk by him as he speaks, though I’m in no state of mind to make out his words. The line of workers ahead passes within a foot of the Devil. They cringe as they move by him. I’m cringing already.

  Five feet.

  I keep my eyes down. I can see the smooth obsidianesque armor that covers the Devil’s backward jointed legs. I can see my warped reflection in that shiny material. I can’t even look up to make sure I can defend myself against his attacks. He’ll probably claw me to pieces. All I’ll know of it is the pain of dying. There will be no chance to toss away that first basket and try out those lightrock rounds.

  I have to move my basket so as not to hit his armored shoulder. I pass him by.

  I’m dumfounded.

  Holy shit. I just walked right by him. My chest loosens. My heartbeat slows. My breathing becomes regular. Maybe they knew? Maybe they just wanted me in the corridors where I couldn’t run? I look behind me, but no one is following.

  The workers march farther into the Core, and as a member of their line, I march with them.

  Somehow they know when and how to divide. I just follow the guy in front of me for lack of a better direction. I see the aqueduct snake through a couple of these chambers. I even recognize the passage which leads up to the room where the aqueduct is at ground level.

  The torches on the walls are being replaced by other workers. That’s probably the easiest job here.

  After our line splits six times, we come to what looks like a chain link fence. There is a lock hanging from it, but the fence’s gate is open. Whatever the fence is constructed out of is no ordinary metal, however. Q once told me about some of the substances the ancients had used in construction. If I’m right, and this is what I think it is, then the fence is made of spun whetstone. According to Q, the substance is so strong it’s impervious even to bullets.

  Beyond the fence is an interrupted lightrock vein. It is perhaps thirty feet thick, though most of it has been hollowed out. The light casts long shadows from the miners which approach it and enter through a gate in the fence. The man in front of me, however, does not head that way. I’ve stayed with him this long, so I keep on following him. I’m not too interested in the lightrock vein, anyway. I need to find out where
Myla is. I need to find my boy.

  But this line also leads to a hollowed out light vein. They’ve dug down into it a good ways, leaving a cylindrical hole in the surrounding hellstone that is thirty feet in diameter and about twenty feet deep. A staircase has been cut into the side of the rock to allow people to keep going down. I stop as we pass through the long shadows of the workers in the room, blocking their path at the gate in the spun whetstone fence. I put down my baskets. The workers behind me stop, and because of the congestion, the workers leaving the area can’t get by either. After a moment, the man I’ve been following for so long also halts.

  He turns around and looks at me.

  I unravel the wrapping on my left hand and then begin rhythmically snapping. No one says anything.

  “Some people say a man is made of mud,” I tell them. “But a poor man is made of muscle and blood. Muscle and blood, and skin and bones. A mind that’s weak and a back that’s strong.”

  They still haven’t said anything. A few have their mouths open. Some bend over and put down their loads of lightrock. Others sit down, closing their eyes. That’s probably what the Archdevil ordered them to do in the case of any sort of rebellion.

  Still, almost half of them are looking at me.

  “You load sixteen tons, and what do you get?” I ask them. “Another day older and deeper in debt. Saint Peter don’t you call me, ‘cause I can’t go . . . I owe my soul to the company store.”

  I hold up my left fist.

  “I was born on a morning when the sun didn’t shine,” I sing. “I picked up a pick and crawled to the mine. I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal. Straw boss said ‘well bless my soul.’”

  I open up my hand to show them the sign of the Infidel. They gasp. A few more sit down and close their eyes, but others look up when they hear their friends’ reactions. Some of those sitters return to their feet.