Not for children. For notes and disclaimer, please see part one. An
additional attribution of copyright and acknowledgments will follow
part four. The previous chapter may be found at the Fonts of Wisdom
(home.att.net/~lubakmetyk/), here at fanfiction.net, and on on the
Topica OTL archive (7/31/01). Your thoughts? Send them to
XanderDG@hotail.com.
_____________________________________________
HELLRAISER: HELLFIRE
by
XanderDig
_______________________________________________
2
"There is an end to earthly pleasure, Mr. Shaw. There are only
so many delicacies a man can devour before even the finest
meals lose their flavor, only so many riches he can possess
before the luster of gold seems muted and flat. But you know
that already, do you not?"
The shades were drawn in the White King's office. They were
made of thin, white paper, and the sun from outside made them
glow with natural fluorescence. Though they were opaque,
Edward Buckman stood facing them attentively. Whatever he
was seeing beyond the blinds held him in rapt attention. I
thought to answer his rhetorical question when he turned back
to me, his watery blue eyes lost behind the beginnings of
cataracts. Buckman pursed his tight mouth. "Yes, yes. You
know that already. You already know. Been making your own
preparations, have you? Learning your craft? You can feel it in
your very *bones*, can't you?"
"I'm not entirely sure what you mean, Mr. Buckman."
"Do not play smart with me, sir. Do not do that. I can read
you. Oh yes. I can read you like a book." A vein stood out,
bisecting the White King's pale forehead and for a moment I
believed the reedy man might attack me. Then he smiled. His
upper lip was sweating, and he flicked his tongue over it before
he spoke. "Like you read the tomes in my library."
"I am so appreciative of being in the Club that I endeavor to
take advantage of every luxury it affords me," I said.
Buckman's expression did not change. With my best salesman
smile fixed on my face, I took a deep breath. The air in the
colorless room stank of antiseptic, the synthetic lemon of
hospitals and mortuaries.
The Hellfire Club came to America in the 1770s, and had called
this lot on Fifth Avenue its home for nearly the entire time.
This building was more then a hundred-fifty years old, and most
of the place smelled pleasantly of old books, ghostly pipe smoke
and the linseed oil used to breath life into the wood. The
King's chamber was different, though. The room was white
and featureless. Its only fixture was a stainless steel sink set
into the far wall, its only furniture a white table that might have
served as a desk. There was a book on it, old and black and
bound in a peculiar, dimpled black leather. It was utterly
incongruous in the sanitary room, as though it were a hole
carved out of space. I wondered if the White King ever sat
down, if he had minions to cart in a chair whenever his legs
grew weary.
"I am no fool, Shaw," he said at last.
"No, Mr. Buckman."
"You're not like the others your age. They're all soft and
weak. Feckless and stupid. But you . . . you're different, aren't
you? There is something hard about you. Something hidden."
The gaunt man's mouth moved, as though he were saying
something but no words emerged. He rubbed his hands
together in a slow, circular motion and walked toward me, his
footfalls whispering over the white tiles.
"Mm. They come to our parties and fill our coffers, but do you
think these other youths have any conception of the work we
do? Of the doors we hold the keys to?" He slowly circled me,
and for a moment I thought he might have been trying to bed
me. I suppose I might have complied for the right reward, but
his seduction turned out to be of a different sort. "Only the
very few even attempt to ask. What is it that you're looking
for, Shaw, when you sit in my library until the sun rises? What
truths do you seek?" He finished his circle to stand in front of
me. His breath smelled of listerine.
"Secrets, Mr. Buckman. I've always found that knowledge is
power, and there is a lot of it hidden in those dusty books."
Buckman laughed.
"That there is! That there is!" He clapped his hands like a
schoolgirl. "But what manner of information, hm? What books
have your fingerprints on them?"
"The Club was born of the Masons. It grew out of the Golden
Dawn. I don't know much, but I know that the secrets at the
heart of the Order are powerful ones. I know that this is more
than a social club, White King, and that I can bring more to it
than my annual dues." Buckman gasped, theatrically putting his
hand to his mouth in a pantomime of mocking surprise.
"Can it be? More than a social club? More than the deals you
make over brandy and cigars? More than the whores we
provide your out-of-town clients when they want a thrill in the
big city?"
"Yes. Much more. I know it."
"Perhaps. Perhaps we serve a greater purpose. Perhaps we
serve greater gods than the almighty dollar after all. Maybe we
serve a more sinewy deity whose temple is less barren than your
bank or your boardroom." He reached up and placed his hand
on my shoulder. "Or even your bedroom. I may have called
you here, but you have been all but begging for your chance in
the light. What is it you believe you can bring me?"
"I am strong. I am smart. I am fearless and . . ."
"Strike me down then. If you are without fear, then assume my
throne. I am thin and old while you are a strong, young man -
you wouldn't even break a sweat." I thought about it for a
moment, considering the White King's gamble. I wondered
what cards he held. "Well? No? Of course not."
He moved his hand to my cheek and touched it lightly, then
turned and walked slowly to the sink as he spoke. "You are
wise beyond your years. I have read the books in the library,
them and many others and I have given them what they asked of
me. I have been rewarded richly for my efforts. There is no
earthly possession that I cannot hold, Shaw, and few beyond the
mortal coil either." He began washing his hands, paying special
attention to the one he touched me with.
"Had you moved to strike me here in my sanctum, your heart
would have withered in your chest. Do you doubt it?"
"No," I said. I found that I really didn't.
"Good. Such is my control over reality," he said, scrubbing his
hands with a hard steel brush. "That is the root of magic,
Shaw. Have your books told you that yet? That real spellcraft
is only excerpting your will over what the uninitiated call real?
I'm sure they have, so let me tell you a different secret." He
turned to look at me, patting his hands dry on an unblemished
white towel. Though I was dressed in the 18th Century
vestments that served as the ceremonial garb of the Club,
Buckman wore plain white pajamas that might have been
fashioned from paper. His hands were red from their scrubbing.
It was only then I realized that though the White King was
powerful, he was also quite mad.
"I've watched you, Sebastian. How you lead the young. How
they flock to you to hear you counsel and listen to your
conquests. You are quite correct, of course. The Hellfire Club
is more than business meetings and kinky social pleasantries.
We have power and influence the world over and can make any
desire, any fantasy flesh as easily as I can draw water from this
faucet. I believe that you are the man who should help me to
design the future of our Order. You cannot begin to
comprehend the fruits you will taste. I am a King. I would that
you were my Knight."
"Thank you. Thank you so much. I . . ."
"But first you must prove yourself. Like all knights, you must
go on a quest. I have grown weary, Shaw. I have tasted all
that there is to taste in this world and crave something new.
There is only one thing I know that can rejuvenate me. Only
one thing that can awaken my tired nerves to the new era we sit
on the precipice of."
"Is it the blood of seven virgin girls?" I joked.
"When I say I have tasted everything this little world has to
offer, Sebastian, I mean it. No. My requirements are somewhat
more occult than mere blood." He pressed a space on the wall
that seemed the same as any other and a slot opened. He
dropped the towel down the shoot, and when he turned his
head, I noticed the thin pink scar behind his ears - a face lift.
He approached the table.
"Have you ever heard of LeMarchand's Box?" he asked.
I shook my head and he came to stand with the table between
us. The White King plucked a pair of thin white cotton gloves
from the waistband of his pajamas and pulled them on. As he
spoke he flipped through the book on the table. The writing
inside was in a Cyrillic alphabet I didn't recognize, but what the
images depicted showed was familiar enough. Heavy black
engravings not unlike the work of Hieronimus Bosch blighted
the ancient pages with scenes of tortures, demons, devils. This
was a book of suffering.
"Philippe LeMarchand was a clockmaker in Napoleonic France.
It may be that he was the finest artisan of his kind in history.
Regardless, he put the Swiss to shame, and nothing built today
comes close to the intricacy and beauty of the chronological
sculptures he created. I own a LeMarchand Clock, Shaw. I
had it purchased in an auction at Christie's for a sum so large
that wars could have been fought over it, but the money was
worth it. Sometimes I open the case to my clock and watch the
gears turn endlessly. Do you know what I see?"
"What?"
"Sometimes, very late at night, I see God in the gears of my
clock." He continued to flip absently through the pages for a
moment. One of the drawings he passed idly over was of the
gates to hell. Bodies swam over the surface of the stone, and it
was impossible to tell if the naked forms were screaming in pain
or pleasure.
"But LeMarchand did not only make clocks. He used his
prodigious mechanical skills to make amusements for the local
children. He made puzzles for them. And it is one of his puzzle
boxes that I desire. His finest creation, commissioned by
Viscount De L'Isle."
"De L'Isle? I know that name," I said. The man was written
about in the occult histories alongside Rasputin and Crowley.
"He was a magician, wasn't he? They say that after he was
beheaded by the guillotine his head screamed until his body
burned on the pyre."
"The very same. He paid LeMarchand a king's ransom to
create a puzzle box to the most exacting mathematical
specifications. To build it with only the most exotic of
materials. Ah, here we are," said the White King. He turned
the book around to show me a drawing.
There were several views of the puzzle box on the page. At
first glance, the object was simplicity itself: a cube held at an
angle with gold leaf inlay tamped into the paper. I frowned and
leaned down to examine the drawings. The grain of the wood
stood out clearly. It was not pine or maple but a pale ebony the
color of coffee if the artist was to be believed. More interesting
still was the gold filigree covering the box. The designs seemed
wrong for France. They were oriental, ornate and delicate, and
they seemed to border on language. It was as though the box
itself were trying to say something through the page.
LeMarchand's box was tilted this way and that in the drawings,
and the genius of its design was apparent. Each of the six sides
bore a different design, but the whole of the piece flowed as
one. Concentric circles whirled into spirals that faded into
geometric patterns that might have been the hieroglyphics of
some long-dead world. The final drawing in the sequence was
different. At first it appeared to be another object altogether,
but on closer inspection it seemed to be the box folded over on
top of itself. I looked at Buckman.
"They're instructions. Instructions for solving the puzzle." He
stared at me for a moment, his face unreadable. Then he shut
the book with a dull thud.
"Instructions? Who's to say? What is certain is that I want the
box, and I want it unsolved and unopened. That is your
knightly quest, Shaw. I want you to retrieve it for me."
"Why is it so important?" I asked, knowing it was the wrong
question even before the words left my mouth. I continued
despite myself. "What do you want it for?"
"The box has no significance in and of itself. All that matters is
that I wish to have it." He moved around the table and close to
me again, pulling the gloves from his hands. "I wish to have it,
and if you bring it to me, you will have whatever you wish as
well. Do we have an understanding Mr. Shaw?"
It would be a step toward what I wanted. A big one. A Knight
of the Council of the Chosen of the Hellfire Club. At twenty-
four years old.
"Yes. We have an understanding, Mr. Buckman." On a whim,
I held out my hand. Whatever reason he had to want this
antique puzzle, it was large enough that he would do things he
found repellent. The White King looked from my face to my
hand and back, licking his lips again. Then he shook with an
awkward grip unaccustomed to such niceties.
"Where do I have to go? Where is the box?" Buckman
released my hand abruptly.
"Two separate questions. The box is lost. I have had texts
searched far and wide, and where the box is hidden remains a
mystery. Its guardians seem cunning."
"Guardians?"
"They are written about, no different than a mummy's curse.
Even if they are real, Shaw, the quest of a knight is not an easy
road. I have chosen you for your courage and your skill." He
smiled at me, an odd appeal to my ego that might have made an
impression were his eyes not continually flicking toward the
sink. "What I have only lately discovered, though, is someone
who may know the path. A man who found the box, but who
was too fearful to solve its mystery. Too cowardly to learn its
lessons."
"This man. Where is he? What is his name?"
"He is a low-life and a failure. A con-man who fancies himself
a magician. The man is in London. His name is John
Constantine. Chantel will give you his information on your way
out."
With that my meeting, my audience was ended. Perhaps it was
foolhardy, but I could not resist a final shot. I took the White
King's hands in my own and gave them a squeeze.
"I am *honored* to serve you," I said. I gave his hands a shake
and then released them, turning to walk out the door. I stepped
into Buckland's waiting area, the more pleasant smells of the
club proper replacing the medicinal scent of his office. I heard
water running from the faucet, the brittle thrash of his scrubbing
before I even closed the door behind me.
***
The Club was all but empty this early in the day. I took this
Constantine's London address from Buckman's beautiful
secretary (she was stunning, and I reminded myself to take her
to dinner, to dinner and breakfast upon my return), then walked
down the stairs to the front. As I passed the dour portraits of
Club luminaries from decades and centuries past I pondered my
meeting with the White King.
Was my ego so blinding me that I was missing something?
How had this paranoid, neurotic scarecrow of a man held
dominion of the richest and most powerful members of society
for so long? Ever since I was a boy, I had regarded the rich and
powerful with a mixture of awe and contempt. I watched them
drive as quickly through my neighborhood in South Philly as
they could, desperate to avoid the soot from the smokestacks
that they themselves owned, and I hated them. Even in that
hate though, I would stare down from where my father had me
cleaning gutters and watch their beautiful cars, their beautiful
clothes, their beautiful lives. I would stare. I would want. I
knew that one day, I would *have*.
Buckman was desperate for this child's toy. Desperate enough
to send me half-way around the world on a goose chase to find
it. Were it only an item of monetary value, the White King
would have hired an investigator to go and buy the puzzle box.
There was no need to waste capital within the Hellfire Club for
some object d'art. No. There was more to LeMarchand's Box
than its utility as a bauble, even an occult one listed in an
ancient grimoire. I could feel that there was more to it. I saw it
in the strange designs that cris-crossed its surface. Knightship
or not, Buckland would find Sebastian Shaw something
significantly more than an errand boy.
I passed an Asian janitor silently buffing the floor in the foyer.
He looked up at me and I gave him a smile. The man tilted his
head slightly, as thought confused, then looked back down at
his task. I pulled my coat close around me and stepped out the
front door.
Fifth Avenue blared cacophony in front of the Club. The entire
street was motionless as a parking lot, and it seemed that every
person in every car was laying on their horns. My secretary, a
Jersey gum-chewer with a penchant for New Wave had
introduced me to a group called Art of Noise. I thought that
they might have done well to take lessons from this traffic jam.
There were several people standing outside their automobiles
despite the cold, staring down the road in morbid curiosity. An
accident then.
The Club's valet was standing out at the curb, leaning out into
the street and ogling in the same direction as the other lookey-
loos. I abhor a person who ignores their responsibilities. I
walked up behind him and tapped him twice on the shoulder,
hard. The man nearly leapt from his skin. He whirled and, on
seeing me glowering down at him, tugged at the bottom of his
red jacket to straighten it.
"Mr. Shaw!"
"What happened?" I asked.
"I was only . . ." he realized I wasn't asking about his
dereliction of duty. "It was an accident, sir. A bad one. A
truck lost control in the slush. It hit a guy on a bike." He
looked back up the street. "Poor son of a bitch," he said.
This time, I followed his gaze past the long line of cars.
Perhaps a hundred yards up Fifth, right at the intersection of
Park were a number of police cars, fire trucks and ambulances.
A red pick-up with Nevada plates lay on its side, and even at
my distance I could plainly see the skeleton of a bicycle poking
out from under the wreckage. I thought of Oz, the Great and
Terrible, and of the Wicked Witch of the East crushed under the
dislocated house of that Kansas child.
"Yes," I said, turning back to the solid wall of traffic in front of
the club. "Poor fellow. Where is my car? I need to be going."
The valet turned to me with a perturbed look on his jowly face.
He seemed ready to say something beyond his station, but
decided against it.
"No getting through this snarl, Mr. Shaw, and they ain't going
to be clearing that intersection for a good while. You best go
up around the block and meet your driver 'round the other
side." He pointed toward the accident and I nodded to him and
began walking toward Park. If the valet expected a tip for his
lollygagging, he was sorely mistaken.
I strolled up the road, listening to the symphony of honking
horns. What did these fools believe all of this noise would
accomplish? I thought again of LeMarchand's Box. I
considered its symmetry, the perfection of the shapes that
crawled upon the cube's surface. As I walked, I glanced from
car to car, noting the curves of a Jaguar, the boxy strength of a
Volvo. The faces of the drivers ranged from enraged to bored,
blank to animated. All of them though, each and every one was
pressing their horns at intervals approaching regularity.
Just as I reached Park and was about to turn, the atonal noise of
the cars reached a level of syncopation that captured my
attention. I slowly turned around to peer at the traffic. It was
as though everyone were honking to the beat of some internal
metronome. More strange still, when all of the cars blared
together, what I had initially taken for tonelessness created a
sort of internal harmony.
A percussive note struck this brass band. The truck finally
succumbed to the will of the NYFD and fell to its four wheels
with a crash. The driver stood with a police officer nearby, his
only apparent injury a mildly black eye. The man's demeanor
was considerably more wounded, though. He held his hand to
his mouth, and tears streamed down his face as he stared at
something I couldn't see. For a moment I stupidly thought he
might be moved by the operatic harmony the car horns were
creating. Then I saw the object of his distress.
Two paramedics came around the other side of the truck
pushing a Gurney between them. A Their pace was unhurried,
and they seemed to be move to the same unheard beat
compelling the drivers in their cars. A third medic kneeled
above the broken shape, performing CPR on the victim. A
white sheet covered the twisted form, a figure that could not
possibly have been that of a man. With each chest compression,
bright red liquid spread on the sheet. I gawked despite myself,
held pat by both the grisly scene and the impossible score
beneath it.
The trio of laconic healers came around to the rear door of their
ambulance and the man on top leapt down with practiced grace,
his back to me. He jumped in to guide while the other two
collapsed the wheels of the stretcher and pushed it into the back
of the vehicle. The sheet was almost entirely red. One of them
ran up front and jumped into the cab. He hit the siren while the
other two worked in back. After a moment, the medic who had
been working so desperately on top of the body (for that was all
it was, a body) reached out to pull shut the doors with blood
soaked hands. Then time stopped, the single harmonious note
of the horns, the siren, even the idling engines seeming to
stretch out.
The paramedic looked in my direction. I knew that he was
looking directly at me despite the fact that the pallid man had no
eyes. It was the figure from Studio 54, a featureless gray man
whose lipless mouth was frozen into an eternal smile. A wave
of nauseous vertigo struck me and I felt I was falling on watery
knees. The figure's hand dripped gore when he grabbed the
door handles.
"Wait," I croaked.
Space stretched impossibly and I thought that I might have been
dying, that a stroke or a aneurism might have been the hidden
cost of the paranormal abilities I kept a secret. For the first
time since my father's death I wished that I had been born
normal until I realized that it was not the world shifting at all, it
was the ambulance. It was pulling away. The faceless man
smiled his inhuman grin and slammed the doors as the vehicle
sped past a line of police cars.
At once, the world returned to normal. The siren was only a
siren, and though everyone in traffic might have been laying on
their horns, it was no different in tone than any Manhattan rush
hour. As the ambulance rumbled away, I knew I only had one
chance.
I ran forward, making for the faceless man, willing strength
into my weak legs. So single minded was my need to discover
who or what this stalking thing was that I barely noticed the
cop who interjected herself into my path. I flung her aside and
continued to run. The ambulance slowed to make the turn
away from Central Park and my hand had almost reached the
handle when my shoulder was roughly grabbed. I spun around,
almost losing my feet even as power flowed into my limbs from
the force of my pursuer.
Almost of its own accord, my hand reared back to teach the cop
who grabbed me the error of his impudence. If there had been
any chance that I could have still caught up with the ambulance
I probably would have. I looked into the angry face of the
policeman, at the woman I had knocked down standing behind
him with her hand on the butt of her service revolver. All
around me, policemen stared. I lowered my hand, and when the
cop spun me around roughly and slapped handcuffs on my
wrists, I made no move to resist. In the distance, the ambulance
sped away.
***
The time with the police had been frustrating. They yelled and
screamed about assault charges and a litany of other sins that
could put me in prison for years. I said nothing to them, of
course. My lawyer arrived and made things right with the
precinct captain. The three of us laughed together as I waited
for my driver to pull around, and the captain held my door open
as I sat down. Behind him, the officer I knocked over in my
haste stared daggers at me. She had a hard look, so I marked
her face well.
It was past three o'clock by the time I arrived back home. The
doorman informed me that Pierce stumbled out sometime past
noon. When I asked him about Emma, all he could give me was
a blank stare.
"A blonde, you say?"
"That's right. Gorgeous figure. Half naked. You must have
seen her."
"'Fraid not, Mr. Shaw. Sounds like a real keeper, though."
"Hm," I said. I went upstairs expecting that the woman would
still be around. Much to my surprise, she was nowhere to be
found, and the money I had left on the pillow was still sitting
untouched. I frowned and went to the unmade bed. I pulled
the pillow she'd slept upon to my face and breathed in. Her
smell was ambrosia. Then I looked back down at the bills on
the other pillow and realized how slow my lack of sleep had
made me.
"Shit," I said, and bolted to the study.
The Hopper was not on the wall, and the safe that hid behind it
hung open and empty. I grabbed the end of my desk. It was an
oak slab, heavy and solid, and I crushed the edge to pulp in my
fist before I cast it across the room as easily as a child might
toss a toy. Though this action expended little of the energy that
had accumulated in my body at the hands of New York's Finest,
I still managed to badly damage both the desk and the wall.
Fortunately, my temper tantrum was brief.
How in hell had the bitch gotten into it? I went to the safe and
peered inside. Thousands of dollars gone in a flash. However,
the gaping maw was not entirely empty. There was a small slip
of white paper inside. It was folded in half. I reached in and
pulled it out.
"Temper temper" was written on the outside in a script less
feminine than one might expect from so beautiful a woman. I
grinned and looked around the room, certain I was being spied
on. Silly, of course. The woman wrote this long before I
arrived home. I unfolded the slip to find seven numbers written
inside. She was either a stupid thief or my perfect match.
Either way, I would discover how she got into the safe. Either
way, I would find a satisfying punishment for the transgression.
But not today.
I put the note into my shirt pocket and went back to my
bedroom. I called my secretary to find her annoyed at my
absence. She became more so when I had her cancel my week
and get me on a redeye to London.
"You're incorrigible, Sebastian," Elspeth said. She was the
only of my employees who called me by my first name. I heard
Devo playing in the background, and could imagine her bopping
away to the small radio at her desk. She ran down the list of
appointments that this would entail rescheduling.
"They can all wait. I have to be in London tomorrow." Despite
her complaining, I knew that Elspeth would have me on a
Concord eight hours after I hung up. She wished me luck on
my journey. As it would turn out, I would have plenty, though
little of it would be good.
After we had worked out the details at the office, I rested on
the bed, surrounded by the commingled smells Emma and I had
left behind. Yes. She would be my first call upon returning
from Buckman's little quest. It had been nearly forty-eight
hours since I slept, and I drifted off quickly.
***
A sledgehammer to the chest awakens me. My eyes flit open
and I find flourescent lights streaking by overhead. When I try
to take a breath, my lungs fill with bees and I want to cry. A
million miles away, I hear car horns singing a mournful chorale.
"It's Mozart," says a familiar voice beside me. "The Requiem."
My head lolls to the side, even this small motion filling my body
with agony to its pours. I see an EMT walking determinedly
beside the Gurney I lie on. I try to tell him to turn around. I'm
desperate to see his face, because I know he doesn't have one.
No voice escapes my mouth, only a rasp. Something leaves
though, something pink and alive that drools down my cheek.
There's a loud crash as we careen through a set of double
doors. The impact feels like a thousand pins, a thousand fish
hooks pulling at once. I want to scream, but I don't. I hold it
in. I don't want any more of my insides coming out. We come
to a stop in the middle of a vast, white room, and I can feel hot
wetness beneath me. I'm leaking. Good God, I'm turning
inside out.
The paramedic turns heel and walks away, and I want to beg
him to stay but I know he wants to eat me alive. He would if he
were in charge. He isn't.
After some time alone, I lift my head. My head sticks to the
plastic pillow beneath it, coming away with a muted, tearing
noise. Emma stands against the wall staring at me in terror. He
chest heaves as she hyperventilates.
"Help me," I mouth. She does nothing. She only lifts her hands
to the side of her head as though trying to protect herself from a
sound only she can hear. She averts her eyes.
I hear the doors open behind me and a number of footsteps
enter this operating theater. I am quickly surrounded by nurses
and orderlies in white. They prepare instruments silently,
almost ignoring my presence. The wetness beneath me is
saturating, and I hear a steady drip splat against the floor. As I
wait for help, the dripping becomes a steady flow, the flow a
shower. I'm not leaking, I'm pouring out of myself. When the
liquid beneath me begins to squirm with a life of its own, thick
tears begin leak from my eyes.
I look back to Emma, and her pale skin has blanched. She has
pushed herself against the wall, nearly into it. Whatever horror
she sees birthing from me is driving her mad. I summon all of
my strength.
"I'm bleeding," I manage.
"It's all right." I turn my head. My father is lying beside me, a
tube running from his arm. "You gave me your blood once.
Now I give you mine."
"No. No. It's poison," I say. The door opens behind me
again, and this time Emma screams. She screams in horror and
revulsion.
"Poison?" A deep voice, bass dragged over gravel, speaks
behind me. Emma continues to scream. The man with the
voice moves in front of me. He is dressed in the green scrubs of
a doctor, masked and capped, only his eyes are visible. They
are black. "Yes, poison. You are filled with poison."
The Doctor holds out his hand and a nurse hands him an
instrument. The horrifying blade is fashioned from rusted brass
or gold, the shape of a crescent moon. Emma's screams turn to
shrieking, shrill and hysterical.
"This is not for you, Emma Frost," growls the Doctor. "Not
for your eyes. Begone." Emma's cries cease and the man turns
back to me.
"Now. The time has come, Shaw. We must cut the poison
out."
He reaches down with the sickle and my torso explodes in
watery fire. I hear the brittle crunch of my rips, and my scream
is wet. It tastes of copper and bile. I turn back to my father.
He smiles at me lovingly from where he sits on the edge of his
stretcher. In his hands is LeMarchand's Box.
"You'll get used to it, boy. You'll find you can get used to
anything."
***
I stumbled across my apartment in the dark, my breathing
ragged, the images of the dream clinging. When I reached for
the scotch I knocked it from the shelf and it shattered on the
floor. Glass cut my foot, the liquor scalding even more. I
found the pain brought me out of the dream, and for that I was
grateful. The vodka was more willing, so I drank deeply
straight from the bottle. I paused for breath, then I drank again,
this time swallowing the Valium I had grabbed from the
medicine cabinet as well. At last my heart began to slow.
The black-eyed doctor's voice haunted me, but not as much as
my old man's. He hated it when I called him that. Mortality
was the only thing that had frightened him.
I took another gulp and went to my closet. I didn't need to
leave for JFK for another two hours, but I packed nonetheless.
The man I sought, Constantine, had been too afraid to solve the
puzzle box. What was there to be afraid of? To my addled,
post-nightmare mind, any mystery worth fearing was worth
solving. Though I was tired and unrested, there would be no
sleep before I left for London. There would be no rest for the
wicked.
________________________________________________________________
To be continued . . .
additional attribution of copyright and acknowledgments will follow
part four. The previous chapter may be found at the Fonts of Wisdom
(home.att.net/~lubakmetyk/), here at fanfiction.net, and on on the
Topica OTL archive (7/31/01). Your thoughts? Send them to
XanderDG@hotail.com.
_____________________________________________
HELLRAISER: HELLFIRE
by
XanderDig
_______________________________________________
2
"There is an end to earthly pleasure, Mr. Shaw. There are only
so many delicacies a man can devour before even the finest
meals lose their flavor, only so many riches he can possess
before the luster of gold seems muted and flat. But you know
that already, do you not?"
The shades were drawn in the White King's office. They were
made of thin, white paper, and the sun from outside made them
glow with natural fluorescence. Though they were opaque,
Edward Buckman stood facing them attentively. Whatever he
was seeing beyond the blinds held him in rapt attention. I
thought to answer his rhetorical question when he turned back
to me, his watery blue eyes lost behind the beginnings of
cataracts. Buckman pursed his tight mouth. "Yes, yes. You
know that already. You already know. Been making your own
preparations, have you? Learning your craft? You can feel it in
your very *bones*, can't you?"
"I'm not entirely sure what you mean, Mr. Buckman."
"Do not play smart with me, sir. Do not do that. I can read
you. Oh yes. I can read you like a book." A vein stood out,
bisecting the White King's pale forehead and for a moment I
believed the reedy man might attack me. Then he smiled. His
upper lip was sweating, and he flicked his tongue over it before
he spoke. "Like you read the tomes in my library."
"I am so appreciative of being in the Club that I endeavor to
take advantage of every luxury it affords me," I said.
Buckman's expression did not change. With my best salesman
smile fixed on my face, I took a deep breath. The air in the
colorless room stank of antiseptic, the synthetic lemon of
hospitals and mortuaries.
The Hellfire Club came to America in the 1770s, and had called
this lot on Fifth Avenue its home for nearly the entire time.
This building was more then a hundred-fifty years old, and most
of the place smelled pleasantly of old books, ghostly pipe smoke
and the linseed oil used to breath life into the wood. The
King's chamber was different, though. The room was white
and featureless. Its only fixture was a stainless steel sink set
into the far wall, its only furniture a white table that might have
served as a desk. There was a book on it, old and black and
bound in a peculiar, dimpled black leather. It was utterly
incongruous in the sanitary room, as though it were a hole
carved out of space. I wondered if the White King ever sat
down, if he had minions to cart in a chair whenever his legs
grew weary.
"I am no fool, Shaw," he said at last.
"No, Mr. Buckman."
"You're not like the others your age. They're all soft and
weak. Feckless and stupid. But you . . . you're different, aren't
you? There is something hard about you. Something hidden."
The gaunt man's mouth moved, as though he were saying
something but no words emerged. He rubbed his hands
together in a slow, circular motion and walked toward me, his
footfalls whispering over the white tiles.
"Mm. They come to our parties and fill our coffers, but do you
think these other youths have any conception of the work we
do? Of the doors we hold the keys to?" He slowly circled me,
and for a moment I thought he might have been trying to bed
me. I suppose I might have complied for the right reward, but
his seduction turned out to be of a different sort. "Only the
very few even attempt to ask. What is it that you're looking
for, Shaw, when you sit in my library until the sun rises? What
truths do you seek?" He finished his circle to stand in front of
me. His breath smelled of listerine.
"Secrets, Mr. Buckman. I've always found that knowledge is
power, and there is a lot of it hidden in those dusty books."
Buckman laughed.
"That there is! That there is!" He clapped his hands like a
schoolgirl. "But what manner of information, hm? What books
have your fingerprints on them?"
"The Club was born of the Masons. It grew out of the Golden
Dawn. I don't know much, but I know that the secrets at the
heart of the Order are powerful ones. I know that this is more
than a social club, White King, and that I can bring more to it
than my annual dues." Buckman gasped, theatrically putting his
hand to his mouth in a pantomime of mocking surprise.
"Can it be? More than a social club? More than the deals you
make over brandy and cigars? More than the whores we
provide your out-of-town clients when they want a thrill in the
big city?"
"Yes. Much more. I know it."
"Perhaps. Perhaps we serve a greater purpose. Perhaps we
serve greater gods than the almighty dollar after all. Maybe we
serve a more sinewy deity whose temple is less barren than your
bank or your boardroom." He reached up and placed his hand
on my shoulder. "Or even your bedroom. I may have called
you here, but you have been all but begging for your chance in
the light. What is it you believe you can bring me?"
"I am strong. I am smart. I am fearless and . . ."
"Strike me down then. If you are without fear, then assume my
throne. I am thin and old while you are a strong, young man -
you wouldn't even break a sweat." I thought about it for a
moment, considering the White King's gamble. I wondered
what cards he held. "Well? No? Of course not."
He moved his hand to my cheek and touched it lightly, then
turned and walked slowly to the sink as he spoke. "You are
wise beyond your years. I have read the books in the library,
them and many others and I have given them what they asked of
me. I have been rewarded richly for my efforts. There is no
earthly possession that I cannot hold, Shaw, and few beyond the
mortal coil either." He began washing his hands, paying special
attention to the one he touched me with.
"Had you moved to strike me here in my sanctum, your heart
would have withered in your chest. Do you doubt it?"
"No," I said. I found that I really didn't.
"Good. Such is my control over reality," he said, scrubbing his
hands with a hard steel brush. "That is the root of magic,
Shaw. Have your books told you that yet? That real spellcraft
is only excerpting your will over what the uninitiated call real?
I'm sure they have, so let me tell you a different secret." He
turned to look at me, patting his hands dry on an unblemished
white towel. Though I was dressed in the 18th Century
vestments that served as the ceremonial garb of the Club,
Buckman wore plain white pajamas that might have been
fashioned from paper. His hands were red from their scrubbing.
It was only then I realized that though the White King was
powerful, he was also quite mad.
"I've watched you, Sebastian. How you lead the young. How
they flock to you to hear you counsel and listen to your
conquests. You are quite correct, of course. The Hellfire Club
is more than business meetings and kinky social pleasantries.
We have power and influence the world over and can make any
desire, any fantasy flesh as easily as I can draw water from this
faucet. I believe that you are the man who should help me to
design the future of our Order. You cannot begin to
comprehend the fruits you will taste. I am a King. I would that
you were my Knight."
"Thank you. Thank you so much. I . . ."
"But first you must prove yourself. Like all knights, you must
go on a quest. I have grown weary, Shaw. I have tasted all
that there is to taste in this world and crave something new.
There is only one thing I know that can rejuvenate me. Only
one thing that can awaken my tired nerves to the new era we sit
on the precipice of."
"Is it the blood of seven virgin girls?" I joked.
"When I say I have tasted everything this little world has to
offer, Sebastian, I mean it. No. My requirements are somewhat
more occult than mere blood." He pressed a space on the wall
that seemed the same as any other and a slot opened. He
dropped the towel down the shoot, and when he turned his
head, I noticed the thin pink scar behind his ears - a face lift.
He approached the table.
"Have you ever heard of LeMarchand's Box?" he asked.
I shook my head and he came to stand with the table between
us. The White King plucked a pair of thin white cotton gloves
from the waistband of his pajamas and pulled them on. As he
spoke he flipped through the book on the table. The writing
inside was in a Cyrillic alphabet I didn't recognize, but what the
images depicted showed was familiar enough. Heavy black
engravings not unlike the work of Hieronimus Bosch blighted
the ancient pages with scenes of tortures, demons, devils. This
was a book of suffering.
"Philippe LeMarchand was a clockmaker in Napoleonic France.
It may be that he was the finest artisan of his kind in history.
Regardless, he put the Swiss to shame, and nothing built today
comes close to the intricacy and beauty of the chronological
sculptures he created. I own a LeMarchand Clock, Shaw. I
had it purchased in an auction at Christie's for a sum so large
that wars could have been fought over it, but the money was
worth it. Sometimes I open the case to my clock and watch the
gears turn endlessly. Do you know what I see?"
"What?"
"Sometimes, very late at night, I see God in the gears of my
clock." He continued to flip absently through the pages for a
moment. One of the drawings he passed idly over was of the
gates to hell. Bodies swam over the surface of the stone, and it
was impossible to tell if the naked forms were screaming in pain
or pleasure.
"But LeMarchand did not only make clocks. He used his
prodigious mechanical skills to make amusements for the local
children. He made puzzles for them. And it is one of his puzzle
boxes that I desire. His finest creation, commissioned by
Viscount De L'Isle."
"De L'Isle? I know that name," I said. The man was written
about in the occult histories alongside Rasputin and Crowley.
"He was a magician, wasn't he? They say that after he was
beheaded by the guillotine his head screamed until his body
burned on the pyre."
"The very same. He paid LeMarchand a king's ransom to
create a puzzle box to the most exacting mathematical
specifications. To build it with only the most exotic of
materials. Ah, here we are," said the White King. He turned
the book around to show me a drawing.
There were several views of the puzzle box on the page. At
first glance, the object was simplicity itself: a cube held at an
angle with gold leaf inlay tamped into the paper. I frowned and
leaned down to examine the drawings. The grain of the wood
stood out clearly. It was not pine or maple but a pale ebony the
color of coffee if the artist was to be believed. More interesting
still was the gold filigree covering the box. The designs seemed
wrong for France. They were oriental, ornate and delicate, and
they seemed to border on language. It was as though the box
itself were trying to say something through the page.
LeMarchand's box was tilted this way and that in the drawings,
and the genius of its design was apparent. Each of the six sides
bore a different design, but the whole of the piece flowed as
one. Concentric circles whirled into spirals that faded into
geometric patterns that might have been the hieroglyphics of
some long-dead world. The final drawing in the sequence was
different. At first it appeared to be another object altogether,
but on closer inspection it seemed to be the box folded over on
top of itself. I looked at Buckman.
"They're instructions. Instructions for solving the puzzle." He
stared at me for a moment, his face unreadable. Then he shut
the book with a dull thud.
"Instructions? Who's to say? What is certain is that I want the
box, and I want it unsolved and unopened. That is your
knightly quest, Shaw. I want you to retrieve it for me."
"Why is it so important?" I asked, knowing it was the wrong
question even before the words left my mouth. I continued
despite myself. "What do you want it for?"
"The box has no significance in and of itself. All that matters is
that I wish to have it." He moved around the table and close to
me again, pulling the gloves from his hands. "I wish to have it,
and if you bring it to me, you will have whatever you wish as
well. Do we have an understanding Mr. Shaw?"
It would be a step toward what I wanted. A big one. A Knight
of the Council of the Chosen of the Hellfire Club. At twenty-
four years old.
"Yes. We have an understanding, Mr. Buckman." On a whim,
I held out my hand. Whatever reason he had to want this
antique puzzle, it was large enough that he would do things he
found repellent. The White King looked from my face to my
hand and back, licking his lips again. Then he shook with an
awkward grip unaccustomed to such niceties.
"Where do I have to go? Where is the box?" Buckman
released my hand abruptly.
"Two separate questions. The box is lost. I have had texts
searched far and wide, and where the box is hidden remains a
mystery. Its guardians seem cunning."
"Guardians?"
"They are written about, no different than a mummy's curse.
Even if they are real, Shaw, the quest of a knight is not an easy
road. I have chosen you for your courage and your skill." He
smiled at me, an odd appeal to my ego that might have made an
impression were his eyes not continually flicking toward the
sink. "What I have only lately discovered, though, is someone
who may know the path. A man who found the box, but who
was too fearful to solve its mystery. Too cowardly to learn its
lessons."
"This man. Where is he? What is his name?"
"He is a low-life and a failure. A con-man who fancies himself
a magician. The man is in London. His name is John
Constantine. Chantel will give you his information on your way
out."
With that my meeting, my audience was ended. Perhaps it was
foolhardy, but I could not resist a final shot. I took the White
King's hands in my own and gave them a squeeze.
"I am *honored* to serve you," I said. I gave his hands a shake
and then released them, turning to walk out the door. I stepped
into Buckland's waiting area, the more pleasant smells of the
club proper replacing the medicinal scent of his office. I heard
water running from the faucet, the brittle thrash of his scrubbing
before I even closed the door behind me.
***
The Club was all but empty this early in the day. I took this
Constantine's London address from Buckman's beautiful
secretary (she was stunning, and I reminded myself to take her
to dinner, to dinner and breakfast upon my return), then walked
down the stairs to the front. As I passed the dour portraits of
Club luminaries from decades and centuries past I pondered my
meeting with the White King.
Was my ego so blinding me that I was missing something?
How had this paranoid, neurotic scarecrow of a man held
dominion of the richest and most powerful members of society
for so long? Ever since I was a boy, I had regarded the rich and
powerful with a mixture of awe and contempt. I watched them
drive as quickly through my neighborhood in South Philly as
they could, desperate to avoid the soot from the smokestacks
that they themselves owned, and I hated them. Even in that
hate though, I would stare down from where my father had me
cleaning gutters and watch their beautiful cars, their beautiful
clothes, their beautiful lives. I would stare. I would want. I
knew that one day, I would *have*.
Buckman was desperate for this child's toy. Desperate enough
to send me half-way around the world on a goose chase to find
it. Were it only an item of monetary value, the White King
would have hired an investigator to go and buy the puzzle box.
There was no need to waste capital within the Hellfire Club for
some object d'art. No. There was more to LeMarchand's Box
than its utility as a bauble, even an occult one listed in an
ancient grimoire. I could feel that there was more to it. I saw it
in the strange designs that cris-crossed its surface. Knightship
or not, Buckland would find Sebastian Shaw something
significantly more than an errand boy.
I passed an Asian janitor silently buffing the floor in the foyer.
He looked up at me and I gave him a smile. The man tilted his
head slightly, as thought confused, then looked back down at
his task. I pulled my coat close around me and stepped out the
front door.
Fifth Avenue blared cacophony in front of the Club. The entire
street was motionless as a parking lot, and it seemed that every
person in every car was laying on their horns. My secretary, a
Jersey gum-chewer with a penchant for New Wave had
introduced me to a group called Art of Noise. I thought that
they might have done well to take lessons from this traffic jam.
There were several people standing outside their automobiles
despite the cold, staring down the road in morbid curiosity. An
accident then.
The Club's valet was standing out at the curb, leaning out into
the street and ogling in the same direction as the other lookey-
loos. I abhor a person who ignores their responsibilities. I
walked up behind him and tapped him twice on the shoulder,
hard. The man nearly leapt from his skin. He whirled and, on
seeing me glowering down at him, tugged at the bottom of his
red jacket to straighten it.
"Mr. Shaw!"
"What happened?" I asked.
"I was only . . ." he realized I wasn't asking about his
dereliction of duty. "It was an accident, sir. A bad one. A
truck lost control in the slush. It hit a guy on a bike." He
looked back up the street. "Poor son of a bitch," he said.
This time, I followed his gaze past the long line of cars.
Perhaps a hundred yards up Fifth, right at the intersection of
Park were a number of police cars, fire trucks and ambulances.
A red pick-up with Nevada plates lay on its side, and even at
my distance I could plainly see the skeleton of a bicycle poking
out from under the wreckage. I thought of Oz, the Great and
Terrible, and of the Wicked Witch of the East crushed under the
dislocated house of that Kansas child.
"Yes," I said, turning back to the solid wall of traffic in front of
the club. "Poor fellow. Where is my car? I need to be going."
The valet turned to me with a perturbed look on his jowly face.
He seemed ready to say something beyond his station, but
decided against it.
"No getting through this snarl, Mr. Shaw, and they ain't going
to be clearing that intersection for a good while. You best go
up around the block and meet your driver 'round the other
side." He pointed toward the accident and I nodded to him and
began walking toward Park. If the valet expected a tip for his
lollygagging, he was sorely mistaken.
I strolled up the road, listening to the symphony of honking
horns. What did these fools believe all of this noise would
accomplish? I thought again of LeMarchand's Box. I
considered its symmetry, the perfection of the shapes that
crawled upon the cube's surface. As I walked, I glanced from
car to car, noting the curves of a Jaguar, the boxy strength of a
Volvo. The faces of the drivers ranged from enraged to bored,
blank to animated. All of them though, each and every one was
pressing their horns at intervals approaching regularity.
Just as I reached Park and was about to turn, the atonal noise of
the cars reached a level of syncopation that captured my
attention. I slowly turned around to peer at the traffic. It was
as though everyone were honking to the beat of some internal
metronome. More strange still, when all of the cars blared
together, what I had initially taken for tonelessness created a
sort of internal harmony.
A percussive note struck this brass band. The truck finally
succumbed to the will of the NYFD and fell to its four wheels
with a crash. The driver stood with a police officer nearby, his
only apparent injury a mildly black eye. The man's demeanor
was considerably more wounded, though. He held his hand to
his mouth, and tears streamed down his face as he stared at
something I couldn't see. For a moment I stupidly thought he
might be moved by the operatic harmony the car horns were
creating. Then I saw the object of his distress.
Two paramedics came around the other side of the truck
pushing a Gurney between them. A Their pace was unhurried,
and they seemed to be move to the same unheard beat
compelling the drivers in their cars. A third medic kneeled
above the broken shape, performing CPR on the victim. A
white sheet covered the twisted form, a figure that could not
possibly have been that of a man. With each chest compression,
bright red liquid spread on the sheet. I gawked despite myself,
held pat by both the grisly scene and the impossible score
beneath it.
The trio of laconic healers came around to the rear door of their
ambulance and the man on top leapt down with practiced grace,
his back to me. He jumped in to guide while the other two
collapsed the wheels of the stretcher and pushed it into the back
of the vehicle. The sheet was almost entirely red. One of them
ran up front and jumped into the cab. He hit the siren while the
other two worked in back. After a moment, the medic who had
been working so desperately on top of the body (for that was all
it was, a body) reached out to pull shut the doors with blood
soaked hands. Then time stopped, the single harmonious note
of the horns, the siren, even the idling engines seeming to
stretch out.
The paramedic looked in my direction. I knew that he was
looking directly at me despite the fact that the pallid man had no
eyes. It was the figure from Studio 54, a featureless gray man
whose lipless mouth was frozen into an eternal smile. A wave
of nauseous vertigo struck me and I felt I was falling on watery
knees. The figure's hand dripped gore when he grabbed the
door handles.
"Wait," I croaked.
Space stretched impossibly and I thought that I might have been
dying, that a stroke or a aneurism might have been the hidden
cost of the paranormal abilities I kept a secret. For the first
time since my father's death I wished that I had been born
normal until I realized that it was not the world shifting at all, it
was the ambulance. It was pulling away. The faceless man
smiled his inhuman grin and slammed the doors as the vehicle
sped past a line of police cars.
At once, the world returned to normal. The siren was only a
siren, and though everyone in traffic might have been laying on
their horns, it was no different in tone than any Manhattan rush
hour. As the ambulance rumbled away, I knew I only had one
chance.
I ran forward, making for the faceless man, willing strength
into my weak legs. So single minded was my need to discover
who or what this stalking thing was that I barely noticed the
cop who interjected herself into my path. I flung her aside and
continued to run. The ambulance slowed to make the turn
away from Central Park and my hand had almost reached the
handle when my shoulder was roughly grabbed. I spun around,
almost losing my feet even as power flowed into my limbs from
the force of my pursuer.
Almost of its own accord, my hand reared back to teach the cop
who grabbed me the error of his impudence. If there had been
any chance that I could have still caught up with the ambulance
I probably would have. I looked into the angry face of the
policeman, at the woman I had knocked down standing behind
him with her hand on the butt of her service revolver. All
around me, policemen stared. I lowered my hand, and when the
cop spun me around roughly and slapped handcuffs on my
wrists, I made no move to resist. In the distance, the ambulance
sped away.
***
The time with the police had been frustrating. They yelled and
screamed about assault charges and a litany of other sins that
could put me in prison for years. I said nothing to them, of
course. My lawyer arrived and made things right with the
precinct captain. The three of us laughed together as I waited
for my driver to pull around, and the captain held my door open
as I sat down. Behind him, the officer I knocked over in my
haste stared daggers at me. She had a hard look, so I marked
her face well.
It was past three o'clock by the time I arrived back home. The
doorman informed me that Pierce stumbled out sometime past
noon. When I asked him about Emma, all he could give me was
a blank stare.
"A blonde, you say?"
"That's right. Gorgeous figure. Half naked. You must have
seen her."
"'Fraid not, Mr. Shaw. Sounds like a real keeper, though."
"Hm," I said. I went upstairs expecting that the woman would
still be around. Much to my surprise, she was nowhere to be
found, and the money I had left on the pillow was still sitting
untouched. I frowned and went to the unmade bed. I pulled
the pillow she'd slept upon to my face and breathed in. Her
smell was ambrosia. Then I looked back down at the bills on
the other pillow and realized how slow my lack of sleep had
made me.
"Shit," I said, and bolted to the study.
The Hopper was not on the wall, and the safe that hid behind it
hung open and empty. I grabbed the end of my desk. It was an
oak slab, heavy and solid, and I crushed the edge to pulp in my
fist before I cast it across the room as easily as a child might
toss a toy. Though this action expended little of the energy that
had accumulated in my body at the hands of New York's Finest,
I still managed to badly damage both the desk and the wall.
Fortunately, my temper tantrum was brief.
How in hell had the bitch gotten into it? I went to the safe and
peered inside. Thousands of dollars gone in a flash. However,
the gaping maw was not entirely empty. There was a small slip
of white paper inside. It was folded in half. I reached in and
pulled it out.
"Temper temper" was written on the outside in a script less
feminine than one might expect from so beautiful a woman. I
grinned and looked around the room, certain I was being spied
on. Silly, of course. The woman wrote this long before I
arrived home. I unfolded the slip to find seven numbers written
inside. She was either a stupid thief or my perfect match.
Either way, I would discover how she got into the safe. Either
way, I would find a satisfying punishment for the transgression.
But not today.
I put the note into my shirt pocket and went back to my
bedroom. I called my secretary to find her annoyed at my
absence. She became more so when I had her cancel my week
and get me on a redeye to London.
"You're incorrigible, Sebastian," Elspeth said. She was the
only of my employees who called me by my first name. I heard
Devo playing in the background, and could imagine her bopping
away to the small radio at her desk. She ran down the list of
appointments that this would entail rescheduling.
"They can all wait. I have to be in London tomorrow." Despite
her complaining, I knew that Elspeth would have me on a
Concord eight hours after I hung up. She wished me luck on
my journey. As it would turn out, I would have plenty, though
little of it would be good.
After we had worked out the details at the office, I rested on
the bed, surrounded by the commingled smells Emma and I had
left behind. Yes. She would be my first call upon returning
from Buckman's little quest. It had been nearly forty-eight
hours since I slept, and I drifted off quickly.
***
A sledgehammer to the chest awakens me. My eyes flit open
and I find flourescent lights streaking by overhead. When I try
to take a breath, my lungs fill with bees and I want to cry. A
million miles away, I hear car horns singing a mournful chorale.
"It's Mozart," says a familiar voice beside me. "The Requiem."
My head lolls to the side, even this small motion filling my body
with agony to its pours. I see an EMT walking determinedly
beside the Gurney I lie on. I try to tell him to turn around. I'm
desperate to see his face, because I know he doesn't have one.
No voice escapes my mouth, only a rasp. Something leaves
though, something pink and alive that drools down my cheek.
There's a loud crash as we careen through a set of double
doors. The impact feels like a thousand pins, a thousand fish
hooks pulling at once. I want to scream, but I don't. I hold it
in. I don't want any more of my insides coming out. We come
to a stop in the middle of a vast, white room, and I can feel hot
wetness beneath me. I'm leaking. Good God, I'm turning
inside out.
The paramedic turns heel and walks away, and I want to beg
him to stay but I know he wants to eat me alive. He would if he
were in charge. He isn't.
After some time alone, I lift my head. My head sticks to the
plastic pillow beneath it, coming away with a muted, tearing
noise. Emma stands against the wall staring at me in terror. He
chest heaves as she hyperventilates.
"Help me," I mouth. She does nothing. She only lifts her hands
to the side of her head as though trying to protect herself from a
sound only she can hear. She averts her eyes.
I hear the doors open behind me and a number of footsteps
enter this operating theater. I am quickly surrounded by nurses
and orderlies in white. They prepare instruments silently,
almost ignoring my presence. The wetness beneath me is
saturating, and I hear a steady drip splat against the floor. As I
wait for help, the dripping becomes a steady flow, the flow a
shower. I'm not leaking, I'm pouring out of myself. When the
liquid beneath me begins to squirm with a life of its own, thick
tears begin leak from my eyes.
I look back to Emma, and her pale skin has blanched. She has
pushed herself against the wall, nearly into it. Whatever horror
she sees birthing from me is driving her mad. I summon all of
my strength.
"I'm bleeding," I manage.
"It's all right." I turn my head. My father is lying beside me, a
tube running from his arm. "You gave me your blood once.
Now I give you mine."
"No. No. It's poison," I say. The door opens behind me
again, and this time Emma screams. She screams in horror and
revulsion.
"Poison?" A deep voice, bass dragged over gravel, speaks
behind me. Emma continues to scream. The man with the
voice moves in front of me. He is dressed in the green scrubs of
a doctor, masked and capped, only his eyes are visible. They
are black. "Yes, poison. You are filled with poison."
The Doctor holds out his hand and a nurse hands him an
instrument. The horrifying blade is fashioned from rusted brass
or gold, the shape of a crescent moon. Emma's screams turn to
shrieking, shrill and hysterical.
"This is not for you, Emma Frost," growls the Doctor. "Not
for your eyes. Begone." Emma's cries cease and the man turns
back to me.
"Now. The time has come, Shaw. We must cut the poison
out."
He reaches down with the sickle and my torso explodes in
watery fire. I hear the brittle crunch of my rips, and my scream
is wet. It tastes of copper and bile. I turn back to my father.
He smiles at me lovingly from where he sits on the edge of his
stretcher. In his hands is LeMarchand's Box.
"You'll get used to it, boy. You'll find you can get used to
anything."
***
I stumbled across my apartment in the dark, my breathing
ragged, the images of the dream clinging. When I reached for
the scotch I knocked it from the shelf and it shattered on the
floor. Glass cut my foot, the liquor scalding even more. I
found the pain brought me out of the dream, and for that I was
grateful. The vodka was more willing, so I drank deeply
straight from the bottle. I paused for breath, then I drank again,
this time swallowing the Valium I had grabbed from the
medicine cabinet as well. At last my heart began to slow.
The black-eyed doctor's voice haunted me, but not as much as
my old man's. He hated it when I called him that. Mortality
was the only thing that had frightened him.
I took another gulp and went to my closet. I didn't need to
leave for JFK for another two hours, but I packed nonetheless.
The man I sought, Constantine, had been too afraid to solve the
puzzle box. What was there to be afraid of? To my addled,
post-nightmare mind, any mystery worth fearing was worth
solving. Though I was tired and unrested, there would be no
sleep before I left for London. There would be no rest for the
wicked.
________________________________________________________________
To be continued . . .