The Devil's Detective (33 page)

Gordie's room was a mess. The walls were still covered with their paper adornments, stuck there with pins and tacks and, in one case, a fork. He read some more of them, intrigued despite himself, finding more cryptic ideas and thoughts (“Alrunes scream when endangered and predict the future,” “There are secret trades and secret trade routes”), odd snippets of geography, tiny, poorly drawn sketches of items and demons and buildings. Some of the pieces of paper that were linked by lengths of twine, Fool saw, listed some of the crimes they had not investigated or had investigated and failed to solve.
Had Gordie started down this road before him
, he wondered,
down this recognition of trails and clues and possibilities and solutions?
Probably; that was what Gordie had been like, always wondering and looking and trying to place things into some kind of order. The room was heavy with his ghost and Fool left it, shutting the door quietly behind him.

The office itself was already growing a layer of dust like a new skin. In its corner, the pneumatic pipe descended from the ceiling, the floor below covered in containers, one blue-ribboned one in among the melee. Fool opened one or two, but not the blue one that he assumed was Morgan's, and found they contained the usual mix of murder and rape and beatings, of bitterness and misery and pain. One of the metal canisters was wrapped in a white ribbon and he picked it up. Before he opened it, he took Summer's picture from his pocket and smoothed it open on his desk. The three of them, caught as Summer practiced her drawing skills. The note inside the canister simply said, “MORE OFFICERS WILL ARRIVE SOON.”

I have troops, and soon more officers
, thought Fool.
A new Summer and a new Gordie. More than that, maybe?
He didn't know, didn't care. Soon, they'd take new souls from outside the wall and give them flesh and send them here. The last vestiges of Summer and Gordie would be removed, the bras and pants taken away, the pieces of paper torn down, and Fool would have new Information Men to train, to get to know. He looked
down at his uniform, at the way the buttons gleamed, and stood. He put the picture back in his pocket, left the note on his desk and the catalog of crimes scattered across the floor in their separate containers, and left the office.

The bag was thin cotton, its handles badly stitched, and Fool hoped they wouldn't tear as he clinched the rope around them.

The journey to Solomon Water hadn't taken long. The transport, driven by its silent demon, had threaded its way through mostly quiet streets, although here and there groups of humans gathered, watching them in silence as they passed. The riots seemed to have retreated, as though Hell were pausing for breath, although once Fool was sure he saw a scuffle taking place far down an alley, but he couldn't make out who was involved and they were past it too fast for him to see much. The ground was littered with the leaflets and they swirled up as the transport drove through them, setting the papers capering in the air. Some of them were larger, Fool saw, folded over so that they formed little booklets; they were covered in writing. He wondered about getting the driver to stop so that he could pick one up and read it, but didn't. They were near the end, although what the end would be he didn't know, and he wanted to get there and get it done.

Once the rope was tied as tightly as he could make it, Fool began to swing the bag, initially back and forth and then higher and higher so that it was performing full circles around him, faster and faster. Finally he let it go, sending it arcing out over the water's black surface, letting the rope run through his hand but not letting it escape.

The bag hit the water, sending up a corona of spray, and even from this distance Fool saw the water soaking into the drying blood and freeing it, teasing it out from the bag and setting it loose into Solomon Water. Morgan's face was recognizable for a moment as the wet bag's side clung to the head it contained, and then it rolled and sank.

It took only a moment. The rope in Fool's hand jerked, first one way and then another and then forward, yanked several feet more out into the water. Fool clenched his hands around it and began to pull it in, feeling
resistance but pulling anyway. The rope jerked again, tearing skin from his palms but he held on, wincing, and pulled. Wakes formed at the end of the rope, a larger central one moving back toward the shore as he hauled, surrounded by smaller ones darting in and out. Under the surface, a frenzy was forming about Morgan's head, lots of Hell's littlest things nipping and biting.

Fool needed to get Morgan's head to shore before the bag split; it was the only bait he had, and if the things in the water actually managed to chew into the flesh, they would realize that no soul remained in it for them to feast on. He didn't know whether they were like their counterparts out of the water, but Fool had to assume that the majority of their sustenance was pain and fear and sour memories, the stuff of the soul, and that flesh was merely the carrier for this. The moment they tasted that the head was nothing but flesh, they would leave, and he needed them to stay. He needed them to gather, and in gathering to bring the larger things to them.

As it came closer to the shore and the water became shallower, Morgan's head began to drag on the bottom. The bag broke the surface, went under again, and then reemerged, the rope taut between it and Fool. He pulled on, the water around the bag rippling and splashing as things flashed in and out again, their backs breaching the surface for brief moments before disappearing again. There were already tears in the bag, its sides and handles fraying where the swimming things had bitten it. Fool pulled and the bag came on.

When it was close enough, he reached out and lifted the bag from the water. He was just in time; a long rip had opened up along the bottom of the material and the stump of Morgan's neck was already pushing its way out, dripping. Fool held the top of the bag and shook it, letting the weight of the head open the tear farther until it was long enough and wide enough, and then it was out and bouncing across the ground. Fool used his feet to prevent the head from rolling back into the water, positioning it instead by the place where land and water met. Morgan's face peered into the sky, his features already looking less like his living self. Death and immersion had softened him, making his lips sag back and his hair trail from his scalp. Liquid spilled off the head and out of the mouth, trickling into Solomon Water, carrying, Fool hoped, the scent
of death and of something that had once been in the lake but was now removed.

Mist curled around Fool's legs in pale tongues. What time was it? He didn't know, had lost accurate track of the hour. The middle of the night, he thought; it had been early in the evening when he left to go to the Questioning House, had spent time there, and then returned to the offices before finally arriving here. Was it late the same day? Early the next day? He felt detached from it, somehow, as though time were something that happened to other people. Was there an Elevation today? Yes, he thought, later on, in the morning. Was he supposed to be there? Yes. It was the last full day of the delegation's presence in Hell; he would be expected to attend to them and then the following morning he would have to escort them back to the tunnel when they left.

Fool sat, the chill water seeping through the material of his uniform and soaking his legs and buttocks. He was cold, and beginning to think this was a bad idea. Even if a demon came, how could he be sure it would be the same one? Gordie had said it was a breed of demon that had been gifted the waters, not a single one. Were they a family? Or individuals? Did they work as a group or were they territorial and solitary? He didn't know. There was so
much
he didn't know, had never known, how could he ever hope to grasp it, to understand? It was overwhelming.

“It is ours,” said a voice from by Fool's ear. He started, scrambling away from the source of the sound, one hand going for his gun.
Should've had it drawn
, he thought fleetingly, and then he was facing one of Solomon Water's demons again.

It wasn't the same one, he could tell immediately; it was shorter and squatter, its limbs less spindly and more solid. Its skinless flesh was dry, the shifting musculature cracked and flaking at points. It looked old, was crouched up the slope from Fool, its head tilted as it looked at him. It glanced at the head and its tongue emerged, flickering at the air, and then vanished. “It is ours,” it said again.

“It's yours,” said Fool, saying a silent apology to Morgan, “in trade for something.”

“No trade,” said the demon and scuttled a little closer. “It is ours. Things from the water belong to us.”

Something splashed behind Fool, a sound thick with cautious movement.
Very deliberately, he pointed his gun down at the head, which was wedged between his feet, and spoke loudly and clearly. “If you or yours touch me, I destroy it.”

“No! Ours!” the demon hissed.

“Trade,” said Fool. The demon didn't reply. Behind it, almost hidden among the trees, dark shapes moved. Fool glanced over his shoulder and saw several more of the demons emerging from the water, stealthy, painted in the night's light and staring at him. When he looked back around, the one in front of him had darted closer, still crouched, its clawed hands digging into the mud a few feet from the head. Its eyes glowed redly as Fool shifted, his aim never wavering. “You're their leader?”

It nodded, tongue flickering in and out, tasting the mist.

“You know me? What I am?”

It nodded again.

“Good. I need to talk to the demon that attacked me the other day,” Fool said. “Then you can have it.”

“No, give it. It is ours,” said the older demon. Fool turned, lifted his gun, and pointed it at the demon closest to him in the water and fired.

The sound of the shot boomed across Solomon Water's surface, the flash seeming to connect Fool and the demon for a moment, and then it screeched and leaped back, spinning in the air. It hit the water awkwardly, sending up a spray of thick, foamy liquid, still screeching. Fool moved quickly, yanking the gun back around and pointing it at Morgan's head. He had to finish this, and soon; they'd realize before long that if they all attacked together, he couldn't fight them off. He had to keep them confused, nervous; humans never bargained, never attacked, never had authority. He must seem to them as demons did to humans, armed and angry and demanding.

“Trade, now,” he snapped, “or I destroy it. Last chance.”

“Wait, wait,” said the demon on the shoreline. “It is from the water, it is ours by right.”

“It is
mine
,” said Fool, “to trade. Want it? Trade.”

The demon made a sound that was somewhere between a wail of pain and a groan of acceptance and retreated, never turning its back on Fool. It made it all the way into the trees and then stopped. Fool moved, keeping
his gun trained on the head at his feet and trying to look everywhere at once. The demons in the water had backed away from the shore. The one he had shot was standing but bleeding from a torn wound in its shoulder, thick ropes of dark liquid spilling from the exposed flesh and spattering down. When they hit the water, tiny curls of gray steam rose, darker than the mist. The demon hissed at Fool but wouldn't look at him, its head lowered. More fear, another demon that would hate him not simply because he was human, but because he was a human who had dared to cause injury.
I must be the most noticed human in Hell
, he thought as he waited.
Little visible Fool.

Good.

More shapes emerged from the lake, not coming close to shore but present nonetheless, visible mainly as ripples and shifts in the water forming around submerged heads and half-seen limbs. Turning farther, Fool watched as the shapes between the trees continued moving, slipping from trunk to trunk, gathering at the edge of the copse. Experimentally, he twitched his gun. The movement stopped, and when it started again, it was slower and at least some of it was away from him as the figures melted back into the shadows. They were, if not frightened of him, then at least cautious, the rumors they had heard about him thickened into a truth by his shooting of their companion and by the head he refused to give up. Good.
Good.

The mist thickened, looping curls of it all around him. Visibility was dropping, and no matter how frightened or cautious they were of him, if he couldn't keep them in sight then the demons would kill him.

“Now!” he said, resisting the urge to shout. He jabbed at the head, forcing it down into the mud.

“One,” he said, letting his voice drop lower. “Two.”

“Here to talk,” said a new voice. It came from inside a hank of mist, from a thick gray blur that resolved itself into the demon that had challenged him for the first body a few days and a whole lifetime ago. Its exposed muscles glistened wetly, its curved teeth uncovered and its eyes like glimmering coals. “Talk and then trade, yes?”

“Yes,” said Fool. “You remember me? From the other day, when you tried to eat the body?”

“Yes. Stupid humans with empty body.”

“Empty, yes. After you found it was empty, you said something. You said, ‘What did he do?' ”

“Yes,” said the demon, its eyes darting between Fool and the head at his feet.

“Who did you mean?”

“The two in the trees, the boy and the other,” said the demon and took several steps forward. It was within touching distance now, its hands flexing open and closed. Fool didn't look away, didn't look down.
How different I am
, he thought.

“What did you mean?”

“Meant nothing. Meant he took the taste away.”

“Who?”

“The other one.”

“What did he look like? Tell me.”

“Pale,” said the demon, “pale and white.”

“I don't understand,” said Fool. “It was pale?”