Letters From Hades Page 5

  I hesitated. Then told her, "I wanted to be a writer. Great American novelist. And it wasn’t going so well…"

  "And that’s why you…"

  "And," I cut her off, "I was working a job I hated, for money that couldn’t cover my bills. And my wife fell in love with a co-worker. Had an affair with him. Left me for him…"

  "Oh. Wow. I’m sorry." She digested this, then meekly asked, "Did you have children?"

  "We had a miscarriage. Year before she left me."

  "Do you still love her?"

  "I’m…not sure." This was the truth. "I guess I’m too busy being in Hell to know how I feel about her anymore."

  "I’m sorry," Caroline said, reaching over to put a hand on my shoulder as we walked.

  Her gentleness touched me; I actually felt choked up. The only real freedom we have here is that we can be kind to each other. Like that African-American man; he couldn’t free his body, but he could free his emotions, and try to help me. It keeps us human, even more so than these sham replica bodies. It’s something that the Demons can’t hack away from us, something they can’t truly understand, because they don’t have it.

  "Nothing to live for," she repeated to herself. "If only we’d known how bad it would be. How death wouldn’t be the ultimate escape. I was afraid that there was no afterlife…terrified of it…but I just couldn’t bring myself to believe in it. And here I am. And it turned out to be real. If only I had been able to believe, I wouldn’t be here right now."

  There was a terrible sound then, that nailed us in our tracks. It was like the howl of a wolf, mixed with the scream of a woman, or the shriek of a banshee.

  "What’s that?" I whispered, looking wildly around me.

  "I think it’s a Demon."

  "Doesn’t sound like the baboons."

  "There are a lot more than them," she hissed. "The Creator gets off on His artistry. There are more than one kind of flower, back home…"

  "Do you want to cut through the forest instead?"

  "Maybe we’d better."

  We went off the path, but snapped twigs and rustled leaves and I wondered if it were such a good idea after all. There were no more cries. It had seemed to be ahead of us, but I couldn’t be sure. But shortly, I found out. We pushed through the low-slung, twisted, leaf-laden branches between two ancient trees to see a figure etched white against a vast dark trunk, a stark silhouette in negative.

  "Christ!" I blurted.

  "Shh!" Caroline warned me, terror ballooning her eyes more at my exclamation than because of the being we saw before us.

  It was a woman, naked—and beautiful—crucified to a titanic oak.

  She snarled at us, her upper lip curling to expose her teeth. There were no fangs other than her human-like incisors, but still the effect was terrifying. We were both afraid to approach any nearer, as much because of her feral grimace as because of the woman’s broad wings, which had been opened and spiked into the tree’s grooved bark.

  We were stunned, speechless, just stood there gawking at the creature. It was plainly a Demon…albeit the most human-looking species I had yet encountered. So what was it doing staked to this tree? Was it being punished by its own kind?

  There were probably ten to twelve spikes pinning each wing, spaced between the four umbrella-like support struts, which were jointed like finger bones, and along the slender upper arm of each wing. I was reminded of the remains of the dead devil I had found in my hiding place back in Caldera. I noticed that veins squiggled across these pallid membranes, thick and dark beneath their translucent surface, like a mysterious calligraphy.

  There had been controversy as to whether the Messiah was pierced through the palms or through the wrists. For good measure, this woman had been nailed through both palms and wrists with more of those thick, crude spikes with their broad heads. I suspected that these spikes were made by the Demons themselves, with purposes like this in mind more so than for use in construction, though the Damned had probably adapted them to such uses. I was reminded of my own crucifixion upon graduation from Avernus University. I began to suspect that this was a revenge meted out not by her fellow Demons, but by lost souls like myself, who also couldn’t forget their crucifixions.

  The female devil was also spiked through both feet, but they were not placed demurely one atop the other as in the case of the Son. Her legs had been lasciviously spread out along the broad curve of the trunk, as if she sat astride the back of some huge animal, and they’d been further anchored in placed by spikes through her ankles. Still, I was surprised that even this many nails could hold her; every species of Demon was reported to be uncannily strong. Of course, she was no doubt weakened from the pain and blood loss from the black iron pike that had been shoved into her guts like a spear. Directly into her navel, in fact, pinning her there like a butterfly. Perhaps it was some perverse reaction to the fact that a Demon, spawned in no mother’s womb, would have an umbilicus at all.

  Blood was caked around each nail. It had flowed the plain of her belly then dried, matting her pubic hair into a scabby crust. It twined around her limbs and streaked down her wings, cracking and flaking. Fresh blood still oozed, however. It was as black as India ink.

  The Demon gave a savage jerk that electrified her whole body. We both took an involuntary step back. The spikes did not loosen.

  Seeing that growling at us wasn’t going to help it any, the Demon tried to bully us instead, taking on an air of authority despite its helplessness. But I could hear the pain and weariness behind the throaty, deep tone of its voice.

  "Set me free, you two! Now! If you don’t, you’ll be the sorriest souls in Hell, I promise you!"

  "Let’s go!" Caroline implored me, taking hold of my arm. I couldn’t blame her; the Demon’s voice frightened me as well. But not more than her eyes did. They were feline; huge and wide-spaced and feral. There was a glassy sheen to them of mad fury, and though they were heavy-lidded they seemed to bulge with emphasis.

  But there was another thing about the Demon’s eyes. They were wet. Her cheeks were wet. When we’d surprised her, tears had been flowing down her cheeks.

  "Who did this to you?" I dared to ask the creature.

  "Your kind, fool, who do you think? Do you think that’s amusing? Do you think they were smart? They won’t be so smart when I track them down. I know their smell. If they were smart, they would have killed me…"

  "We should," Caroline whispered in my ear.

  I bent to her.

  "Should what?"

  "We should kill her!" she hissed.

  Deep chuckling made us both look up. The naked woman was wagging her head slowly. "Don’t be more foolish than you are. I’ll forget that you said that. Set me free."

  "You’ll kill us!" Caroline whimpered.

  "I won’t, you stupid cow! I promise you…you have my word. If you set me free, I won’t harm you. Why would I? You didn’t do this to me. But I tell you…the longer you hesitate, the angrier I’ll become." Despite her wet cheeks, a terrifying smile oozed along her cheeks. "Now I know your smells."

  "Let’s go, please!" Caroline pleaded, trying to pull me away. "Please!"

  "I’ll get you, little hog," the Demon purred, eyes fixed on my companion.

  "She can’t get away. Hurry! We need to go!"

  My eyes lowered to that terrible skewer through the woman’s guts. The pain must be extraordinary. I should know; I’m an authority on extraordinary pain. Would she survive even if I freed her?

  I took two uncertain steps toward her.

  "That’s a good boy," she cooed huskily. It was like an obscene lullaby.

  My eyes rose to her breasts, which were not much touched by the inky blood. They were full but not overly large. Oddly, the nipples and their soft aureoles were a subtle gray color. And her skin itself was white. Not pale white. Not even the white of a bloodless corpse. She was paper white, her flesh without pigment. She looked like she’d walked out of some black and white movie. Her hair, long and damp w
ith sweat, was black as oil. Her cat-like eyes were a pale gray. And her lips were the same gray as her nipples. Those lips…they were almost a caricature of fullness. Lushly overripe, fruit too long on the vine and about to spoil. When she closed her mouth, they seemed to pucker in a mockery of a little girl pout.

  My eyes strayed over her long feet, her strong thighs, her androgynously broad shoulders and muscular arms. The tendoned arch of her neck. And when I met her eyes again, I flushed with embarrassment.

  "Lust is a sin," she said, her full lips spreading in a smirk.

  I actually felt ashamed for objectifying a female Demon. Political correctness in Hell.

  "I’m sorry," I muttered, and lowered my eyes from hers. But I drew closer to her.

  "I’m going!" Caroline whined.

  I looked sharply over my shoulder at her. "She swore she won’t hurt us!"

  Caroline backed further and further away. "I’m going on without you!"

  "I can’t leave her this way!"

  "Why? Why? Look—she’s one of them!"

  "Well I’m not one of them. I can’t be that way. I have to let her go."

  "You wouldn’t let one of the baboons go. You want to help her because she’s beautiful!"

  "No. Because she’s almost human. Look at her!"

  "I’m going!"

  "Even if she did hurt us, what more could she do than the next Demon will do? And the next after that?"

  "I’ll put off my next beheading as long as I can! You forget, I just spent years buried on that plain back there! Years! I can’t bear to be caught again so soon!"

  "Go, then. I’ll catch up with you."

  "Fine! Catch up with me…if you can still walk after she rips you apart!" And with that, Caroline bolted madly into the thick of the woods, batting branches out of her way, plunging into and then lost in the dark vegetation.

  Returning my attention to the impaled monster, I swallowed and said, "Do you want me to…should I…"

  "Pull the spear out, first," she said, her voice somewhat softer now, letting a groan mix with it. "Then, use its tip to start prying loose the nails."

  "If I take it out, will you bleed to death?"

  "I can take a lot of pain, and a lot of bleeding. And I’ll heal. Not as fast as you can, and I can’t grow back severed parts like you can, but I’ll live."

  "But you can die." I looked more directly at her.

  She looked directly back. "Yes. I can die. So. Are you going to kill me after all?"

  "No. I said…I’m not like you Demons."

  "Yes, I know. You’re better, more advanced, blah blah. But who’s the prisoner here?"

  "Who indeed?"

  She smiled once again. "Come on. Be chivalrous, my fine little human. Prove your humanity. Take the thorn from my paw."

  I reached out my hands, curled them around the rough shaft of the heavy iron lance. I squeezed my fists tighter around it, hesitating. I was afraid to hurt her.

  And when I gave a sudden tug, she screamed. My eardrums were nearly rent by that wail, which was like the one that Caroline and I had heard initially.

  It took more than one pull. On the last one, I fell back and nearly lost my footing. I saw fresh blood running out of the punctured belly button as if it were a bullet wound. Black blood ribboned around her thighs as it flowed out the inevitable wound in her lower back.

  And when I lifted my eyes to her face, I saw tears gliding freely down her cheeks. Her face was no longer smug, but a mask of anguish. Her lashes were black, and around her eyes was a subtle grayness of the flesh, these heightening their striking effect. Sometimes I think women are more beautiful when they’re not happy than when they are. Maybe that’s why men mistreat them. All I knew then was that this unearthly being was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen, and I wondered if maybe Caroline was right about my motivations for freeing her, all loftiness and morality aside.

  As she had suggested, I started using the point of the rod to pry out the spikes, starting with one in her wing. I couldn’t bear to start on her hands or feet, not after the pain I had already caused her. She was moaning, gasping the occasional outright sob. I couldn’t look at her face again.

  I worked out the first of the nails, moved to the next.

  "My wings are probably ruined," she muttered thickly.

  "Will you still be able to fly?"

  "Fly?" She raised her heavy head. "Who said I could fly?"

  I had never seen the flying monkey devils fly, but I had always assumed they could if they wanted to. I told her as much.

  "They can’t fly either. Some Demons levitate, but not my kind."

  "So why develop the wings?"

  "Develop? Don’t you mean to say evolve? Nothing evolves. See…it’s that kind of thinking that put you here in the first place." She paused to grunt as I levered out another nail. "There are birds with wings that don’t fly, aren’t there? Penguins and ostriches? The Creator gave my kind wings like He gave the peacock a beautiful tail. Because it pleases His eye."

  Yes, why give her wings, except out of sheer whim? Why give her that remarkable face? It was like the mantis I had found at the university. A mysterious beauty for its own sake.

  After a lot of straining effort on my part, my palms blistering and my fingers slick with her blood, I removed the last of the nails in her wings. They drooped, shuddered convulsively, stirred as if to circulate their blood. Even after she calmed them the best she could they still visibly trembled. Up close to them, I could see that the bigger veins near the point where the wings rooted into her back pulsed with the flow of their blood.

  I moved to her hands next.

  I freed one. Her groans made my own guts churn. I felt like I was a Demon myself, torturing one of the Damned. Roles reversed. The people who had overpowered her and pinioned her here must have found pleasure in that reversal. From the pose they’d left her in, I wondered if they had raped her…but I was afraid to ask her that.

  She reached above her head to dig her fingers into the deeply fissured bark so as not to fall forward while I knelt before her like a worshipper, loosening the spikes that transfixed her feet. I freed one. Then, with a final effort of strained muscles, drenched in sweat, I dug out the last of them. And the Demon allowed herself to drop forward onto the ground, resting her forehead to the forest floor, her elbows and knees bunched under her, her rump pointed in the air and the wings tremulous over her like a collapsed tent of living skin.

  "I’m sorry," I said.

  She rose up before me then, so suddenly and so tall—at my own eye level—that I flinched violently.

  "Thank you, little one," she purred. She was trying to sound cocky, in control again. A proud warrior, an Amazon with bat wings. But I could see that puffiness around her eyes, the droop of the lids, the tightness around her mouth. She felt shame at what had been done to her. Humiliation, that I had witnessed it. That she had needed my help. That she might even have died had I not come.

  I let the pike drop heavily to the grass by my feet. She glanced down at it. Then she stooped to retrieve it. She winced and clamped a hand flat against her abdomen as she rose. I gulped saliva. I pictured her plunging the tip of that pike through my eye now…her way of getting back at the former mortals who had bested her.

  "I’d better hurry if I’m going to catch up with your friend."

  "What? Wait…please…"

  "She wanted to kill me."

  "She was afraid!"

  "So were you. But you helped me."

  "But I’m a newcomer here. I’m not jaded yet. I’m…"

  "Stop making excuses. Just be grateful that I’m not shoving this up your ass now like I’m going to do to her."

  "Please!" I practically barked at the creature now. "Don’t! Do it to me, then, if you have to do it to somebody."

  She cocked her head. "You’re an odd one. Yes…you are a newcomer, aren’t you? Not all your lot are like you." She thrust the spear’s tip under my nose. "Those others fucked me
with this. Like the smell?"

  I jerked my head away. "Go hunt them down, then. They deserve it. Not Caroline."

  "Do you love her?"

  "I hardly know her."

  "But you’ve fucked her." She leaned in close to my neck and drew in a deep breath, lifting her face so that it was practically nose to nose with mine. "I can smell sex on you."

  "Please," I repeated. This close, I smelled the tang of sweat and the metallic sting of blood on her. "If you want to repay me for helping you, you won’t…"

  "Repay you?" she snarled. Her eyes grew wild, startling me. Bulging insanely. "I don’t need to repay you, understand? I didn’t strike a deal with you! I didn’t buy my freedom! You’re the punished here, I’m the punisher!"

  "I’m sorry!"

  "Did you think I’d pay you back with sex? Is that it? Do you think you could even survive mating with me? I’d bite your fucking head off like a praying mantis, you sorry little brown-noser!"

  She flung the pike down and its length vibrated, its point gouged into the earth between my feet.

  "I don’t need this to punish your girlfriend," she rumbled, and with that she plummeted off into the forest…tearing through the same vegetation that Caroline had vanished into. Even after her white figure with its flag-like wings was gone from sight, I heard the distant underbrush crackling.