The Scarlet Gospels (36 page)

At that, Harry felt the Cenobite's thaumaturgic grip on his body released. Harry fell to the ground and sucked in great gasping breaths. Even his lungs had been in service to the Priest's whim. Harry collected himself and, content in the knowledge that he had witnessed the end of this scene and indeed the end of an era—and potentially a war that might have spread over Heaven and Earth—he began to crawl in the direction of the nearest felled wall. He had no need to watch the killing blow. He only wished to be again with his loved ones.

As Harry made his way out of the sanctuary, the Hell Priest reached up to Lucifer's face and would surely have put out the angel's unwounded eye if he'd had the chance, but Lucifer was too quick to lose the advantage. He batted the Hell Priest's hands away.

“You had your moment,”
he said.
“Now it's gone and it won't come again. Say your prayers, child. It's time for bed.”

Harry exited the cathedral. He could hear all manner of sounds: shouts were heard from demons watching the final struggle of the Hell Priest and Devil, moans unintended from the dying, and other sounds that perhaps emanated from Lucifer's attack on the Cenobite—the tearing of fabric and of flesh, the breaking of bones.

Harry clambered up and over the last heap of bodies and came in sight of his exit. There were still demons lingering around the threshold, apparently uncertain of whether they should venture in or not. Harry wove his way between the loiterers and out into the open air. There his friends were waiting for him at the edge of the lake.

“Harold! Thanks fucking Christ!” Caz said as he ran to his friend. “I fucking told them I was giving you five more minutes and I was coming in to get you!”

Harry took in the scene. Despite the colossal tree that had been placed across the lake, and the hordes of demons who scrambled to cross it as they fled from the infernal war zone, the lake was a bit more placid than it had been when Harry and his cohorts had first ventured around the cathedral and the Quo'oto had been turning the waters white in its frenzy. The sight of the dark lake and the starless sky above it was wonderfully soothing after the slaughterhouse scenes they'd left behind them. Caz walked Harry toward the water's edge and stood staring out at the tabula rasa before him.

“Done dancing with the Devil, D'Amour?” Dale asked.

“Never,” Norma said, answering for Harry. She was more right than he cared to admit.

“What the fuck happened in there?” Lana said.

“It's not important,” Harry said. “Here's something you'll only hear me say once: let's follow these demons.”

Norma laughed. “That's the fourth time I've heard you say that.”

“I missed you, Norma,” Harry said. “Let's get you home.”

The Harrowers turned toward the makeshift bridge, where the large number of survivors had decided to retreat from the cathedral, many with blood streaming from their wounds and still carrying a knife or a sword to defend themselves if the need arose, but there was little antagonism among the exiting crowd. They were too anxious to be out of the cathedral—away from whatever was now happening inside—to be picking fights with one another, or anyone else for that matter.

As Harry and his Harrowers moved to cross the bridge, from the cathedral Lucifer's booming voice could suddenly be heard:

“I was an angel once! And I had such wings! Oh, such wings!”

Everyone looked toward the cathedral, where cords of light now danced against the few walls that remained.

“But they are just a memory now,”
he continued, “
and I am left with a pain I cannot endure. Do you hear me?
Do you hear me!
”

The repetition of his question was painfully loud, even to those standing outside the cathedral's walls. The building, for all the pillars and buttresses that supported its immensity, shook as the Fallen One's voice grew louder. Stone dust fell in fine dry rains, the escalating growl of stone grinding on stone.

“I was finished with my life,”
the Devil said,
“finished with this Hell I built. I was dead, and happy. But it seems I cannot be certain of death until I bring all of this down on our heads, and there is no Hell to call me back again.

“Hell is finished. Do you understand? If you have other places to go, then go while you can, because there will be nothing left when I am done.
Nothing!
”

 

12

By the time the quartet of Harrowers, plus Norma, began their return journey away from the cathedral, all of Lucifer's audience had grasped the profound seriousness of their situation and were departing by any means available. There were fissures in the walls now, rising from the ground like black lightning, the flying buttresses crumbling as the connecting stonework fractured and fell away, the capitulation of each buttress putting the central structure in even greater risk of complete collapse upon itself.

“What happens when we get off the island?” Caz said as they went. “How do we get back home?”

Harry threw him a despairing glance. “I don't have a fucking clue. But that old demon woman mentioned something about getting home, so I think we need to pay her a visit. As far as I can tell, we
did
make it out alive.”

“But will we make it out with our sanity intact? is the question,” Norma said.

“All I know,” Lana said, “is that I'm taking up alcoholism when this thing is over.”

“Make it a double,” Dale said.

The exodus from the cathedral was a chaotic flood of frightened demons; many of them, in their haste to be away from the failing building—and even and even more urgently from the creatures inside—were running through the shallows of the lake, so as to avoid the crowded beach. It was only a matter of time before their plunging through the water drew the attention of the Quo'oto.

The beast surfaced suddenly, in a great explosion of foaming water, and seemingly dislocating its lower jaw so that it protruded much farther than the upper, it easily scooped up twenty demons in one pass. Then it threw back its head, tossing its catch down its black throat, and plunged into the lake again only to surface less than a minute later to do the same thing farther down the beach, closer to the front door.

Its appearance did little to dissuade many of the crowd from running out into the water almost immediately, preferring to risk being taken by the beast than to be anywhere near the cathedral. Their frenzy was understandable. The roof was beginning to collapse now, churning up dust that was illuminated by a flickering blue light from within.

There was one piece of good news for the Harrowers: the newly constructed bridge that had been placed across the lake by the army of the Unconsumed made crossing back to the beach easier than having to fight for a boat. It wasn't an elaborate structure, but with the Quo'oto busy digesting the remaining demons Harry and company crossed the body of water and reached the safety of the beach without incident. They ran at speed, Caz carrying Norma all the way. When they finally touched ground, it was not far from the demon encampment from which they had originally launched their boats.

“We have to go to the village,” Harry said. “The old lady will be there.”

“You all stay here, look after Norma,” said Dale. “I'll go. It isn't far.”

“I'll go with you,” Caz said.

Harry, Lana, and Norma found a place up off the beach under the shelter of what looked to have been a small copse in better days, now reduced to little more than a few desiccated, leafless trees.

“We'll wait here for you,” said Harry.

“And if you don't come back in an hour or so I'm going to come looking for you,” Lana said. “I don't trust that old woman.”

Caz and Dale headed toward the camp while Harry did his best to make Norma comfortable on the uneven ground.

“What are you thinking, Harry?” Lana asked.

“Ha!” Norma barked. “There's a can of worms.”

Harry's heart warmed. Norma was back in his arms—bruised but alive—and hearing her familiar maternal tone again made him feel like things just might work in his favor for once. He turned to Lana and spoke.

“Going through that,” Harry said, gesturing toward the compromised structure, “makes me feel a little used up inside. But everything's going to be all right, right?” The cathedral's demolition continued, though it had slowed now that its walls were, in several places, little more than heaps of rubble.

“I don't think that's how life works,” said Lana. “But at least it's something you can depend on from the moment we enter this fucked-up world. I think babies cry when they're born because they're born with the knowledge of all the terrible shit that's gonna happen to them. That's why I never had kids. Every life is a death sentence. We just forget it later in life, like dreams we lose the second we wake up. Whether we worry about it or not, the shit's still going to fly. The important thing is we're here. At least for now.”

“Reassuring,” Harry said.

“All the more reason we get out of here as fast as we can.” Lana looked along the beach. “I lost sight of the boys. Hopefully they're getting some help from that old bitch.”

“There you are, witness.”

The Hell Priest appeared suddenly. He walked off the bridge and made his way over to them, the condition of his body so ragged and his face so utterly devoid of its former symmetry and elegance that unless he had spoken Harry would have passed him by unnoticed. Now they stood face-to-face as the crowd turned past them, on up the beach and away into the darkness. D'Amour realized then that his tattoos hadn't let off any alarms in hours. Maybe he'd burned them out. Whatever the case, they'd betrayed him. He crossed in front of Norma to protect her. Lana shot up, readying herself for a fight.

“Jesus Christ,” Harry said. “You look like hell.”

“My witness … my faithful, unerring witness.”

“It's gonna make a hell of a book, Pinhead.”

“It is a shame that you will not see it to its end now. You live in the dark, D'Amour. And that is where you will remain,” the Hell Priest replied. And so saying, he raised his left hand to his face, whispering an indecipherable incantation. His words ignited in the cage of his blackened fingers.

“Still more tricks?” Harry said. “They've done wonders for you so far.”

He moved to the right of the demon and took two, perhaps three steps down the beach to better position himself for a fight, but the Hell Priest had other plans, and against his will Harry felt himself once more lose control of his body.

“Fucker!” Harry shouted.

“Harry?” Norma called out.

“
No!
” Lana screamed as she advanced.

“Away, cunt,” the Priest said to her. “Or I'll see to it that your punishment far outweighs your crimes.”

“Norma. Lana. Let it go,” Harry said. “This is between me and Pinfuck.”

Harry's eyes began to prick.

“Christ. What are you doing?” His heart quickened, not beating but hammering. And with each hammer blow the pricking worsened, as though invisible hands were steadily pressing white-hot needles into his eyes. He tried to blink, but his lids refused to close. The Hell Priest had turned to watch him, Harry's eyes catching a gleam of the cold blue light that Lucifer was emanating. As the pain increased, darkness crept in from around the edge of Harry's sight.

“Look your last, witness.”

Though the Priest still had magic, the strength of his workings had clearly left him, and the working on Harry's body was nowhere near the paralyzing thrall the Priest had held over him in the cathedral. Harry fought the magic and reached out, making contact with the Hell Priest's cold, wet body. His fingers found something to hook themselves under, though whether it was torn flesh or a portion of the Hell Priest's stolen vestments Harry neither knew nor cared.

“What more do you want from me?” D'Amour said. “What am I to you? I need my eyes. I'm a detective.”

“You should have thought about that before you turned your back on your duties.”

The darkness encroached at ever-greater speed, and Harry could now no longer take in the Hell Priest's face in a single glance but needed to scan it through the iris that was closing his vision down. He could see nothing in the demon's face that suggested there was any reprieve to be had. There was only the cold light reflected off the Fallen One in his eyes. The rest, what had once been a kind of perfection, was ruin.

This has been your life,
said some cold, steady voice in him, apparently immune to the terror that had confounded the rest of his thoughts.
You have wandered among evil things, seized by a sickly intoxication that allured you to play the role of hero, while all the time you've been indulging an addiction.
This wretched clarity was more than he could bear. Why now, of all times, did his brain choose to make such a damning judgment? It became a loop that now receded behind the ever-darkening terror.

And then every last pin drop of sight was gone.

 

13

The noise of the demons' chaotic departure became more ragged after a time as what had been a solid flow eventually diminished. The wounded came now, many gasping for breath as they did their best to climb the beach, often moaning with pain, some even weeping quietly. It was one such demon's whimpering that woke Harry. All track of time was lost as he lay there on the stones, the side of his face stinging from the wounds he'd sustained wherever and whenever he'd landed.

“Hello?” Harry said. “Lana! Norma! Anyone?”

“Harry!” Harry heard Lana's muted voice calling out to him. “You're awake. Oh Jesus—” Her voice was followed by the sound of her approaching footsteps.