Affliction (Hellsong: Infidels: Cris Book 1) Page 6

  For the first time since Myla stole my son and left me, I cry.

  I see light flickering. Guess I’m not blind. It’s coming through a grate in an ironbound woodstone door. The room I’m in is small, maybe eight feet by six feet. I want to sit up, but my body knows instinctively that I can’t. For some reason, I can’t even try.

  Keys rattle around in the lock. The woodstone door opens smoothly on its hinges. The light is coming from a torch. The torch is in Myla’s hands. I have no idea if I’m happy to see her or not. Or rather, I’m flooded with both the ecstasy of a prisoner seeing his loved one and the agony of a prisoner seeing his torturer.

  There are tears in her eyes. “Cris,” she breathes. “Oh, God, Cris. What have you done to yourself?”

  She doesn’t bother closing the door behind her, but I suppose that’s safe enough. It’s not like I’m going anywhere. There is no sconce in the walls, so she leans the torch against one corner. The smoke bothers my lungs, but I don’t dare cough.

  She kneels beside me and cradles my head. “Oh, Cris. You look bad.”

  She is so warm compared to the cold stone, her touch so soft. I smile. The bruises on my face make the smile painful, and my skin feels like it’s being stretched taut.

  Her face is half lit by the firelight. Her red hair seems surreal, so long and all bound up behind her head. She frowns. “It’s worse when you smile.”

  I really wasn’t able to keep the expression on my face anyway.

  “Aiden?” I ask.

  “He’s alive. And he’s well.”

  Lying bitch. He might be alive. “Is he here?”

  Her right lip pulls up into a sneer. I remember that expression well. A relationship can’t recover from that emotion, I’ve found. After someone feels you’re inferior, the thing’s over. There’s no coming back from that. But I’m not inferior. She just mistakes compromise for weakness. She thinks a willingness to admit mistakes is the sign of a fool. Only, in my current situation, I can’t say that she’s underestimated me. It’s just too damn unfair. How could I have sensed that I was going to be ratted out? How could I have known?

  “Cris, I’m not going to answer any of your questions. I’m just here to see you. To be here for you one more time. I saw you take that beating. You didn’t deserve that much.”

  She grips my left hand. The hand is okay, but her grabbing it moves my arm a little. I suck air in through my teeth, but my lungs can’t expand anymore, so I have to let the breath go.

  “That’s . . . nice of . . . you,” I manage.

  Mercifully, she lets my hand down. “Somehow it always gave me courage, thinking of you out there,” she says. “You were so noble. Such a paladin, even if you didn’t much care for God. You’d stick to those principles. Even though you were wrong, and I couldn’t let your foolish misconceptions hurt our son, it made me feel better to know you were out there in this damnation, making a life for yourself. You shouldn’t have come, Cris. This isn’t the place for you. You don’t have the constitution for it.”

  “I just . . . I just couldn’t hurt other people. I love them . . . I love all of them . . .”

  The sneer is gone completely from her face. She touches my forehead affectionately. Her fingers are so soft. “Sin one time or a thousand, baby, they can only damn you once.”

  “I loved you Myla. I really did.”

  “I know you did, Cris. Love just isn’t enough, you know.”

  “I know.”

  Worry crosses her beautiful features. Her ivory skin gleams in the firelight. “He’s coming here, soon.”

  “Your new boyfriend?”

  “Yes, Cris. The Devil is coming here soon. This isn’t a game. Maybe you don’t believe that he’s the real Devil. Maybe I don’t either. But he’s at least an Archdevil. He’s got powers you can’t—”

  My body is shaking now with anger. “I thought you . . . you weren’t here to interrogate—”

  “I’m not, Cris. I’m really not. But he’s going to hurt you in ways that’ll make that beating seem like it was nothing. He can rip up your soul into pieces and leave you as less than a wandering corpse. Now you and I both know you’re not an Infidel Friend. Spare yourself. Let him know. He’ll know that you’re telling the truth.” She’s so close to me I could kiss her if only I could sit up. My neck lets me raise my face an inch or so. She bends farther down, but not to kiss me. She whispers into my ear. “You can keep a place for me in the next Hell, if you want. Maybe if we’re separated from Aiden, and I don’t have to fear for his safety . . . maybe you’d be worth your strange honor code.”

  I can smell her. It’s familiar. Her hair is brushing up against my face. I feel the cold touch of something on my cheek. It’s a bobby pin. With a surge of adrenalin I crane my neck forward so that my mouth is in her hair, as if I’m going to whisper back in her ear.

  My teeth find the bobby pin and I pull it out. “Let down . . . your hair,” I tell her.

  “Sorry, Cris,” she says. “I’m not your girl anymore. Don’t try and be stubborn, baby. You can if you want, but you’ll only get hurt. I don’t think I want to see you get hurt anymore.”

  I let my head fall back down to the stone floor. The quick breaths I take just aren’t enough. “Keep Aiden . . . happy.”

  I’d ask her for more. I’d ask her to give him the important things. But I don’t have the breath for it, and it wouldn’t do any good to ask anyhow.

  “Cris,” she leans back into her kneeling position and puts her hands up to the strands of hair I’d loosened. “I’m sorry.”

  She grabs her torch and leaves. The darkness takes me, but she’s forgotten something.

  Smiling hurts too much, so I only smile on the inside. Turns out she did underestimate me after all.

  Everyone knows that, in a movie, you can pick a set of handcuffs with a bobby pin, but what most people don’t know is that this is something that actually works. Picking the cuffs behind my back is going to take some effort, but it’s not like I have anything else to do.

  The first step, in this case, is to remove either one of the small plastic beads that have been attached to the ends of the pin. The cuff lock itself looks like a little circle with an indent coming down from it. You fit the pin into the indent and pull it back to make a ninety degree bend. Once you’ve got that first bend in the pin, you have to pull it out and insert the bend itself back into the cuff lock. Then you make a second bend by pulling it back the other way. After you’ve got the two ninety degree bends, you can use it to unlock the cuffs.

  Of course, this isn’t going to be easy. I can’t even sit up to grab the damn bobby pin. I use my right shoulder and left leg to shimmy backward. It’s hard, because lifting my torso up causes the muscles in my chest and abdomen to lock up, but my newfound hope drives me. I make progress by inches, and then, when I think I’ve gone far enough, I worm my cuffed hands over to my right to try and grab the pin.

  I can’t find it. I squirm around in a frenzy. No no no. Fuck no. I know I didn’t lose it. The light is gone so there is nothing to see. Maybe I had run into it while I was moving earlier? I’d search more frantically if I could, but my body won’t allow it. All my frustration has to stay inside . . .

  But there—my nearly numb fingers touch it!

  I move myself backward another inch with my shoulder and leg, and then grasp the pin between my fingers. I fiddle with it, drop it once, and recover it. With my fingernails, I work on the bulbous end. It should feel rubbery, but it does not. The bulb at the end is part of the cheap metal. It won’t come off, and it makes the pin too thick to pick the lock.

  It won’t work.

  I feel a crushing weight on my chest. The pain I’d earned from my body during this last exertion had been held at bay by my hope and adrenalin. As they fade away, the pain comes back.

  Hard.

  The firelight streams in through the bars of my prison door again. The Devil, he’s coming for me. I had hoped for more time to recover. I had hoped
that I would be strong enough to sit up to face him. I had hoped to escape.

  Keys rattle in the lock. The door swings smoothly open. The bearer of the torch is none other than Kessler, the bastard who ratted me out after eavesdropping on my conversation with Q. Apparently they’ve let him in the fold. He seems high as a kite. As he bends down beside me, I see his bowie knife sheathed at his hip. It’s a damn shame I’ve no way to reach it.

  He sets the torch down in the corner where Myla had. Again the smoke bothers my lungs a little. Kessler coughs himself, which is comforting. He has a bowl in one hand. I can smell the devilwheat. Obviously I need to eat, but the hunger, as strong as it is, is nothing compared to the pain.

  “I know you think the other infidels will come for you,” he tells me, “but they won’t make it.”

  He’s fucking right about that. I can’t sit up, so I just shrug from where I lay.

  “The Devil’s assigned patrols to guard Maylay Beighlay. Your people won’t be getting through. An infidel is no match for a wight.”

  Well, he’s delusional, but it’s not like anyone is going to come and burst his bubble. Not even Q. Maybe he would under normal circumstances, but the Infidel had ordered his people out of this city.

  Kessler places the food bowl next to me. “You can tell me what the Infidel’s orders to you were, if you want.”

  I shake my head. “I’ve helped you . . . enough, friend. By ratting me out, you got your ticket into his posse. And . . . the fact that he’s got guards in the city . . . makes him shorthanded. I’ve done enough for you.”

  He nods seriously. “You have helped me, but I don’t owe you a damn thing. If you could have stopped me from spying on you, you would have.”

  “Maybe. Maybe it was my plan to infiltrate all along.”

  For a second he looks horribly worried, but then he laughs. “A foolish plan.” He laughs some more. “I bet you’re hurting inside.”

  No shit. “Oh?”

  “Because of Myla. She used to be your lover, right? And now she’s bearing the Devil’s child. That’s got to hurt.”

  “She’s what?” Oh Myla. What have you done?

  A sadistic little grin appears on his face. “She’s pregnant with the Devil’s child,” he repeats.

  I didn’t even know that could happen. “Shame. Hope the child favors his father, otherwise the kid will be insufferable.”

  He laughs hard at that. Too hard. They’ve given this one too much wightdust.

  “You infidels are something. Always joking. Hell never gets you down.”

  I shrug. “You know he’s not really the Devil. He’s just an Archdevil who claims to be Satan.”

  He shakes his head. “No. He’s the real one, alright. You have no idea how powerful he is. What other force could so easily destroy the holy city of Maylay Beighlay?”

  Jesus Christ on a go kart, this one is delusional. I had heard Maylay Beighlay called many things, but holy city was a new one. “What would the Devil need with armor?” I ask him.

  He ponders this with the detachment afforded him by the chemicals no doubt coursing through his bloodstream. “You may be right. But in the end, Cris, does it really matter whether he’s the Devil or not? He’s still more powerful than anything you can hurt.”

  Of course he is. Right now, a three year old girl with cerebral palsy would give me trouble. “Just thought you should know.”

  “Enjoy the food,” he says.

  He picks up his torch and leaves. The door closes and the lock rattles. I’m alone in the darkness with the bowl of food.

  Instinctively, I reach toward the bowl to eat it, but my hands are still firmly cuffed behind my back. I’ve got to sit up. I scoot back to the wall. I press my head against it and try to use my leg to power myself up, but I have no way to raise my torso off the ground. I try just pushing, but I just drive myself into the corner.

  He had laid the food bowl to my right. I cross my left foot over my ruined right one and try to search around for the bowl. I kick it and hear it slide a little across the stone. I wish my legs were more flexible. Maybe then I could have kicked off my remaining boot and gripped the bowl with my toes.

  I manage to move back to the bowl. I’m thinking I can just drop my face in it. The bowl tips and the devilwheat spills on the floor.

  Fuck.

  I’m not that hungry anyway. Still, I should eat—assuming the devilwheat isn’t polluted. How am I to heal without food? I wait for my breathing to calm down a little. I maneuver my body so that my head is next to the spilled food. With my leg I shift my weight onto my right shoulder. I crane my neck back and to the right so that my face is in the food. I lap up a few bites. At least it doesn’t taste rotten.

  The effort is painful and exhausting. I pause again to try and regain my breath. Then I eat for a few seconds. I taste something metal in my mouth. It’s the useless bobby pin. I spit it back out into the devilwheat.

  Firelight appears again in the doorway. The lock opens smoothly.

  This time it is the Devil.

  His two wights flank him, the tall black one and the marble man, each carrying torches. The door swings into the stone wall and bounces off of it, vibrating for a moment before becoming still.

  The firelight glints off of the black second skin that I’d seen poured over the Archdevil earlier. Around his eyes and at the joints there are places where the armor is missing. There his brilliant orange and yellow coloring shines through. The wights stay outside the room while the Devil’s backward jointed legs propel him into the chamber. His armored wings drop behind his back as he hunches his way through the door and then flair wide as he crouches to his haunches. Since his legs are formed differently, his knees bend up behind him, and he lets his wings settle over them. His eyes, a deep red without any iris or pupil, narrow into slits. I feel his will on me already, a weight on my wounded chest.

  He’s going to break me. It’s not a question of if, but when. Do I really want to hang on? Is the life of a tortured and interrogated slave worth living? He is still, dead still, the gargoyle of my nightmares. He hovers over me, not speaking. I don’t want to move, because doing so will show him how weak I am, as if he couldn’t tell that already by the devilwheat that covers my cheek and a good portion of the floor of my cell.

  “I’m sorry for you,” I tell him.

  His head cocks to one side, like a giant predator bird.

  “Myla,” I explain. “I know you’re suffering more than me.”

  He does not respond to my quip. His will grows heavier. I can hardly breathe.

  SHE HURT YOU.

  His words cut straight to the truth in my soul. There is no helping it. It’s his power. Only a man comfortable with himself and all of his life could withstand a thing like this. I feel the tears welling up in my eyes.

  It’s happening right now. I’m breaking. I guess I’m not so strong after all.

  The sob hurts my chest. I wish I was cold, unfeeling. An infidel would feel no such emotion . . . but that’s not entirely correct. I know that Q feels deeply. He is just at peace with feeling deeply because to him, feeling does not necessitate action. Anger does not necessitate hate. Nor lust love. Nor fury violence. Could I be like that? Could I learn this on the fly?

  I try it. I love Myla, still, as much as I hate her. And that’s okay. It is natural for people to love. There is no shame there.

  “Yes,” I tell the Devil, “our separation was very painful.”

  SPEAK.

  No. I’m not ready to die yet. “Why are you smelting lightrock?”

  The head cocks to one side again. I hear the wights shift in the doorway. One of their torches pops and crackles. I feel the thing’s will coming on again, harder and harder. I can barely breathe.

  YOU ARE AFRAID.

  The pain is excruciating. “Are . . . you?” I try to keep air in my lungs, but the weight on me is so great. The agony is causing my eyes to water—or maybe it’s from my feelings for Myla.

  Bu
t he’s right. If I’m here for Myla, even if it’s to hurt her, then I’m not a very good father in my heart. Still, since Aiden’s alternative is homeboy Satan over here, a dipshit dad like myself doesn’t seem so bad by comparison.

  YOU HAVE FAILED.

  On Earth, maybe he was right. Here he definitely is. I am nothing now if not a failure. But again, there is no shame in this. What could anyone expect from me? Certainly I’m outmatched. My journey was foolhardy. Q was right when he told me simply to make another child.

  He leans forward and places one clawed finger on my hurt ribs. He presses down ever so slightly. I can’t breathe. Pain explodes up through my torso, but I can’t do anything about it. I can’t move at all. I can’t even shift my weight. The cuffs dig deeper into my wrists. He hasn’t even asked me a question yet. This isn’t your normal kind of interrogation. It occurs to me suddenly that he might actually be Satan. This might actually be his Hell. The level at which I’m outmatched may have been far greater than I’d anticipated . . . which is saying a lot, since I’d thought this attempt was a hopeless one already.

  The finger retracts and I can suddenly breathe again.

  I OFTEN WONDER HOW PEOPLE’S LIVES ON EARTH WOULD BE AFFECTED HAD THEY KNOWN THAT THIS PLACE WAS THEIR DESTINATION.

  Would it have changed anything for me? Would I have tried to live a more moral life? Maybe gone to church? But since I have no idea what the rules are concerning the afterlife, I’m not sure what good it could have done. For all I know, there isn’t even a heaven. For all I know, Vishnu built this place to torture Christians.

  YOU BEAT THAT GIRL, IN KINDERGARTEN. YOU BEAT HER AND TOOK HER LUNCH. THEN YOU LIED. YOU WERE NEVER PUNISHED.

  Oh God, he can read my mind. I’m in some serious shit. If he can pull that out of me then there is no hope. Eventually he’s going to get to those dark parts of myself that I’m ashamed of. He might just pick the truth of my situation right out of my mind. He might know already and just keep torturing me to suit his sadism. Even if he’s not the Devil, he might as well be. I see his narrow eyes staring into my soul. I don’t know how to fight this. I’m sorry, Aiden, I don’t know how to protect my mind from his prying. Sooner or later he’s going to figure out that I have no mission, and then he’s going to kill me. There is no stopping it.