Lucifer's Lottery (31 page)

Krilid loved coming to the Torturaries—they were perfect places for target practice.

Slug-skinned Ushers stalked the grounds to supervise the Torture Attendants, and as for Cage Roasting? Sulphur beds were kept sizzlingly hot by various Crossbreeds forced to constantly pump foot-operated bellows systems. Above each bed hung a cage, quite like an iron maiden, which contained one very unhappy subject. The cages were lowered very slowly,
and when the occupant began to burn, the cage was raised, to protract the unassuagible pain. Agonicity terminals were implanted into each subject’s brain, to provide the compound with all the power it needed.

Krilid groaned as he watched the machinelike process below: the systematic raising and lowering of the facility’s hundreds of Roasting Cages. Eventually a captive would be roasted down to a crisped twig but since almost all prisoners here were Human Damned, those twigs never died. They’d be thrown into trenches where they would twitch, shudder, and think for eternity.

Krilid figured he was half a mile up when he sighted his matchlock rifle. The sounds that came from below could’ve been a diabolic song. Screams intensified as cages were lowered, then diminished when they were raised. It was a pipe organ in Hell, with Human throats as the pipes.

BAM!

Gotcha!
Krilid rejoiced after the rifle’s delayed discharge. The horrific head of an Usher in the center of the field erupted like a large, ripe fruit. Consternation ensued after that first shot, Conscripts coming to alert in the towers, Torture Attendants being called back to barracks—

BAM!

The head of a Captain of the Guard burst next. Krilid chuckled as he reloaded. Now alarm sirens were sounding. When an Air Viceroy took off on a saddled Gryphon—

BAM!

—Krilid waited till the winged beast had ascended to a sufficient height before he shot its beaked head off. Spiny feathers dispersed, and the Viceroy fell straight down and landed in one of the sulphur beds.

Yeah!

Krilid knew his time was short. Now that the Torturary was under attack, an Archlock would be summoned to determine Krilid’s position. If detected fast enough, Krilid
could be blinded or paralyzed via the Psychic Sorcerer’s telepathy, but—

I’ve never killed an Archlock before
, he realized.

It was a foolhardy chance he was taking but Krilid felt lucky today. He squinted from the Nectoport’s egress. An Archlock wouldn’t expose himself on the open field but he
would
have to make a visual assessment of the scenario . . .

Windows
, Krilid thought. No Archlock could psychically scan the sky without at least looking out a window.

And Archlocks all gave off auras . . .

Don’t
dillydally
, Krilid ordered himself, his shooting eye wide open behind the sight.

It was in one of the tiny tower windows that Krilid thought he spotted the tiniest flash of liquid-black light, like a wavering luminous vapor. It was a long shot, but he aimed, squeezed the weapon’s rickety trigger, then bucked backward when the sizable projectile rocketed out of the rifle barrel.

Krilid kept his gnarled fingers crossed. Then—

You gotta be kidding me!

—the prison tower exploded as if demolitioned, not from the impact of the bullet, of course, but from the spontaneous release of cabalistic energy caused by the bullet’s entrance into the Archlock’s skull. Bricks, Conscripts, Ushers, blood, guts, and limbs all flew violently into the air, then rained back down. Bolts of black light like stygian lightning cracked in the wake of the Archlock’s assassination.

Krilid chuckled when he zoomed the Nectoport out of the vicinity.
I guess that’s what you call a hole in one
.

But his amusement and satisfaction didn’t last long. True, he’d done a good job, but it was only target practice. Very soon, he would be faced with the Real McCoy—and have to score a similar head-shot on Master Builder Joseph Curwen . . .

Howard turns around, with you on the stick. Suddenly you’re facing all sixty-six of your personal concubines, standing beautiful and nude, in formation, the six Pamela Andersons right up front.

My
God
, you think.
I can’t believe what I’m about to do
. . .

“Well, Mr. Hudson?” Howard asks.

You don’t even hesitate now. “I accept the Senary.”

Howard’s pale face seems to flush with relief. “Great Pegana! For a while I truly feared you would turn it down.”

So did I
. . . You sigh. “So what happens now?”

“Well, I hope you’ll pardon the cliché, keeping in mind, however, that clichés are actually quite powerful Totems of classicism here.”

“Cliché?”

Howard nods. “You’ll have to sign a formal contract.”

“In blood, I suppose.”

“Yes. Your own.”

Then it strikes you: “I can’t sign a contract! I’m a pumpkin! I’ve got no hands!”

“Not
here
, Mr. Hudson. Remember, right now you are still in fact an inhabitant of the Living World. Once I displace you back to the Larken House, the Senarial Messenger will have your contract prepared.”

The deaconess
, you remember. “So
then
what? I sign and then kill myself?”

“Goodness no! You still have the rest of your life to enjoy, and you will be able to do so in grand style.”

“I don’t get it,” you tell him.

“Upon putting your commitment into writing, Lucifer will grant a so-called ‘signing bonus,’ in the sum of six million dollars—”

“Six million! In cash?”

“Cash money, sir, this for you to suitably finance yourself until your physical life does, in fact, end. You will die painlessly in your sleep, Mr. Hudson, six days after your sixty-sixth birthday.”

Your demonic eyes bloom.
And I’m still young! I’ve still got more than HALF MY LIFE left to live! And with six million bucks to boot!

“There’s only one point I need to make, though, Mr. Hudson, and I cannot overemphasize its pertinency.” Howard looks at you quite seriously. “Once you’ve signed the contract, no amount of repentance can reverse its terms.
Once you’ve signed the contract
. . . you’ve abandoned God forever.”

The words sink deep.

Howard shrugs. “But with all you’ll be given here, in a lock-solid guarantee? What real man would ever
want
to repent?”

As you stare once more at all those beautiful women and demons, you can think of nothing—absolutely
nothing
—to counter what he’s just said.
I’ve believed in God my whole life. I’ve done everything in my power for as long as I can remember to SERVE GOD. My faith was so strong that I was going to become a PRIEST. But-but
—

“You’ve got a deal, Howard,” you say.

“And so do you, Mr. Hudson. You have Lucifer’s untold gratitude for the victory you’re allowing him to score over God.” Howard takes your Snot-Gourd off the stick. “We’ll all be waiting for you. And I look forward to an eternity of friendship with you.”

“Ditto,” you say.

“And now? Until that wondrous time . . .” Howard removes the pulpy plug in the back of the gourd, and the gas of your Ethereal Spirit slips out like air from a popped balloon . . .

When Favius’s muscle-girded body dove into the pit, he felt as though he’d landed in a morass of scarlet sewage. He’d done this, though, with no hesitation. The Grand Sergeant may well have already sunk to the bottom, or been consumed by some atrocious seaborne monstrosity that the Pipe-way had transferred to the Reservoir, but—

It is my duty to Lucifer to try to save him
.

At once the appallingly thick currents turned him this way and that. The chunky Bloodwater remained turbulent from the winds of the passing storm; alternate currents tugged him farther from the force of still more Bloodwater surging through the sub-inlets. His inhumanly strong arms and legs
stroked
in the hot red slop. Small things nudged at him, scenting his presence and also his fear, but then some larger things nudged him, too, Divell-Eels, probably, and Gut-Fish. Favius thrashed them away, knowing all the while that much
bigger
creatures would be scenting him as well, things that could swallow him whole. He knew he had precious little time to find the Grand Sergeant and drag him out.

Holding his breath, he thrust himself down . . .

At the time of the Grand Sergeant’s fall, he’d not yet redonned his plate-mail armor—a good thing, for he’d be easier to drag up. But the bad thing was that Favius still
wore his armor, and in spite of his superiority of musculature, he needed twice as much strength to navigate in this living stew. During his desperate motions, he managed to slide off his helmet, and unsnap his breast plate, and this helped minutely. Then his hands groped out as he plunged deeper, feeling for
anything
that might be his commander, but he knew that his energy would dwindle in moments.

Satan, help me, I beg you
. . .

It wasn’t death he feared—as one of the Human Damned, he, like the Grand Sergeant, could not die—but to be swallowed by a Gorge-Worm, for instance, or to have a Gigapede slip instantly down his throat and begin to feed would be far worse than even the grisliest physical destruction. Blind in the Bloodwater, Favius howled bubbles when a Spirochete-Fluke wrapped about his face. He tore it off with one hand, then shredded it with several maniacal swipes of his sword.

A lost cause
, he knew as his energy waned. His hand kept lashing out, hoping to grab something that might be the Grand Sergeant but all he came up with were fistfuls of waste, rotten flesh scraps, or body parts.

One last plunge downward, then—

—and he grabbed an arm still connected to a body. The arm moved . . .

The prospect of hope doubled Favius’s strength. Yes, a living arm was now in his grasp, and then his columnlike legs kicked, and he was propelled upward—

splash!

Favius broke the surface, hauling in breaths; and moaning in his grasp was Grand Sergeant Buyoux.

May the Prince of Darkness be praised!

The Grand Sergeant was still conscious. He heaved in vile breaths after hacking up much Bloodwater.

“Grand Sergeant! Hold on to me!” Favius yelled over the churning din. “I’m losing my strength—”

Even in his terrified stupor, Buyoux looked astonished at the man who’d saved him. “In the name of all things unholy, Favius! You hurled yourself into the maw of almost certain destruction only in the tiniest chance of saving me—”

Favius’s muscles raged in pain from the exertion of breast-stroking through the thick liquid horror. “Try to kick with me, sir! My strength is ebbing from this current . . .”

They managed to splash a sluggish course back to the wall of the rampart, where a rope ladder awaited them.

“We made it!” Buyoux shouted.

Not quite yet
, Favius realized. While they remained in the Bloodwater, they were still easy prey; and what might’ve been worse was the fact that the back current at the wall kept forcing them off. Conscripts above dropped more rope ladders; Flavius lunged—

Got it!

—and grabbed one.

What little strength remained was used to shove Grand Sergeant Buyoux up.

“Grab the rung!”

Buyoux’s enfeebled hands barely managed to do so. “It should be you on this ladder, not I—”

“Climb, Grand Sergeant!”

Favius used his own weight at the bottom to steady the ladder. It was the back current along the wall that made it almost impossible. Meanwhile, one rung at a time, Buyoux clawed his way up—

“You’re the bravest man in Hell, Favius—”

“Climb!”

Feet from the top, several Conscripts grabbed Buyoux and pulled him safely over the wall. The troops cheered—

Favius’s muscles spasmed as he doggedly began to climb the ladder.

“Get him up!” Buyoux bellowed.

Another rung, then another. Then—

snap!

The rung broke. Favius fell back into the Bloodwater.

He began to drift backward in the current.

“No!” Buyoux screamed above.

I’m not going to make it
, Favius knew. His strength was gone now—he was helpless to fight his way back against the current, but then—

Silence slammed down over the entire Reservoir. The roar of the Main Sub-Inlets . . . ceased.

And the current died.

“Favius! Swim!”

It must have been by the grace of Satan that Favius was able to find more strength and stroke his way back toward the wall where a dozen rope ladders waited for him.

But even in his terror, he didn’t understand.
What’s happening?

“Faster!” Buyoux shouted. “The pumps have been turned off, which can only mean the Reservoir is
filled!
”

Filled? Favius continued de-energized strokes toward the ladder. The silence stifled him, but now he thought he smelled something very sudden and
not
characteristic of the heinous Reservoir and its six billion gallons of Bloodwater; and when, on his next stroke forward, he happened to glance up—

Several unhelmed Conscripts seemed . . . out of sorts.

Their hair was standing on end.

“For Satan’s sake, Favius! Swim faster! The Merge is about to take place, and if you’re in the water when that happens—”

Favius didn’t hear the rest. Just as his hand would grab hold of a ladder rung—

The ladder disappeared, and so did the retaining wall and the ramparts and the bloodred sky and the black sickle moon and everything else in the rest of Hell.

Dorris felt dizzy; she felt
terrified
. What was happening? When she’d first looked at herself in the bait-house mirror, her blazing white hair—feet long—stood on end and stuck out like an aura. Initially she’d thought she was being electrocuted but her rubber flip-flops stood on a perfectly dry wood-plank floor.