Now before the dark, p.28
Now Before the Dark, page 28
“Walter the Undying cast the banishment spell,” Sloot offered.
“He’ll have used an intermediary. They never do more vork than they have to. There’s a chance she can still see causality.”
“That’s good,” said Greta. “She can point you on the right path or something, right?”
“Possibly,” said Sloot, “but it’s still not—”
“If you say ‘it’s still not enough time for me to pull this off,’ I’ll feed you your tongue.”
Sloot said nothing, a tactic employed better late than never.
“We need that watch, Sloot.”
“I know,” said Sloot, “but I don’t think I can—”
“Good,” said Vlad. “Don’t think.”
“What?”
“Remember what I told you about thoughtlessness.”
“You barely told me anything at all.”
“I probably said too much.”
Right in the Mortality
Sloot didn’t make it into the cathedral on the first try. That would have required the steely resolve of a heroic type, and who knew where they were these days? A bunch of them were in the cathedral, in fact. It had been full of potential heroes at the Fall of Salzstadt. Potential heroes and Sloot.
As he wandered the streets to work up his nerve, Sloot thought about all the salts who died on that fateful day. Most of them had been soldiers loyal to the Domnitor, long may he reign. Then they’d been loyal to Vlad when they broke down the door to the cathedral, and then they’d been loyal to Gregor when he killed Nicoleta and took the blood star. But at one time, they’d all been subjects of the Domnitor, long may he reign.
He made his way back around. They hadn’t even fixed the doors, one of which still hung by a single hinge. The other was lying halfway into the darkened narthex beyond. There was an official-looking rope on poles in front of it. Strangers visiting the city might have pointed out that anyone could simply walk past it, and any salt would respond by blowing his whistle until the filthy foreigner was strung up by his thumbs.
This was Salzstadt. You stood in line, you waited your turn, and if you thought of a better way of doing things you kept your mouth shut. Or you spoke your mind and got strung up by your thumbs next to the foreigners. There was always plenty of room.
“Hello?” Sloot felt ridiculous calling into the darkness of an abandoned cathedral, but there was a rope. His voice echoed into the chasm and faded into nothing. A light rain started to fall.
Nice try, Sloot thought. The rain was definitely a test. He’d just step around the rope for a little shelter from the rain, then. Who could fault him for that? Ha! Pull the other one. Sloot Peril was as true a salt as you’d find, allowances granted for former Carpathian spies. He turned up his collar and waited.
“Whad’you want?” asked a shambling shadow after a few minutes.
“Oh, hello, mister…”
“Spackle.”
“Hello, Mister Spackle. Well, er, it’s hard to explain, actually.”
“You look a bright lad,” said Spackle. “Have a go.”
“Well, I died here, you see, and—”
“And when would that have been, young sir?”
Sloot hesitated. “The … well, I don’t know why they call it that. I’m not sure it’s entirely polite. Salzstadt is still here, after all, isn’t it?”
“You died in the Fall of Salzstadt,” Spackle said doubtfully. He leaned toward Sloot with a squint, the pale grey evening casting blessed little light across his gnarled and rotting features.
“Yes,” said Sloot, “and I believe my mother’s watch is still in there. If I could just—”
“Shove off.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Look here, son,” said Spackle, his tone somewhere between sympathy and threats, “I know times are tough, but these is true salts of Salzstadt what lie within. Loyal subjects of the Domnitor, long may he reign.”
“Long may he reign,” said Sloot. “I know. I was. I am! I just—”
“And not to judge a book by its cover, but if you really died at the Fall, I imagine I’d find you hard-pressed to explain why your cheeks are still rosy and your legs are still on without splints and garters.”
“I’m a demon.”
Spackle gave Sloot a squint.
“Then you, my son, are a scientific curiosity. I’ve never known demonhood to be an optional substitute for death. Granted, I didn’t go to university for science or theology, but I do know a bit about what happens post-mortem.”
“Oh, it’s not a substitute,” said Sloot, barely concealing his glee at being able to correct someone on semantics. “I was properly dead for quite some time.”
“And then what? You got better?”
“Reassigned.”
“Re … assigned.” Spackle repeated the word as if trying it on for a fit. His sidelong glance asked Sloot if it came in another size.
“Look, I can’t really explain,” said Sloot. “I was a ghost for a while, and then I got—well, I was given a mission.”
“A mission.”
“Yes,” said Sloot, “and the- and they made me a demon so I could fulfill it.”
“They? They who?”
Sloot had been waiting his whole life to use this one.
“That’s classified,” he said. He spent a long moment wondering whether he looked like someone who could pull off a phrase like that. He came to the conclusion that he might have, had he been wearing more expensive shoes.
“Right,” smirked Spackle, who’d apparently picked up on the shoes thing. “Sorry, no new watch for you today, son. Off you go.”
“Wait,” said Sloot, “I can show you! I know about where my body must be, and it’s—”
Sloot’s eyes darted back and forth in a horrified moment of realization.
“It’s what?”
“Oh, what’s the use?” moaned Sloot. “Even if I did find my body, my head’s not on it! Roman came and took it to—”
“Wait, Roman? Not Roman Bloodfrenzy?”
“The same,” said Sloot.
“And that would make you Sloot?”
“That’s right,” said Sloot after a moment’s hesitation. His flight response was giving him a predictable signal.
Spackle closed his eyes.
“Stood right in front of me,” said Spackle dutifully. “Held up a freshly severed head and said, ‘he’ll be back for the rest one of these days.’ Looked just like you, come to think of it. Minus the body, of course.”
“Of course,” said Sloot. “I don’t need the rest of me, just the watch. It’s important.”
Spackle shrugged. “Far be it from me to stand between a man and his … self.” He stepped aside. Sloot nodded his thanks and made his way inside.
While Sloot’s imagination had prepared him with a modicum of dread, it turned out to be woefully inadequate. The sound of buzzing flies echoed in the vaulted chamber over the carnage. Some of the dead shambled around aimlessly, others played cards or conversed in small groups, but the bulk of them did nothing at all. They lay in their piles, mostly in the very spots where their mortality had expired.
The worst part was the smell, but not for the reason most people would assume. Sure, it was a revolting mélange of rotting carcasses in the stifling confines of an ill-ventilated room, but what bothered Sloot was that he didn’t find it unpleasant. Must the demonic palate differ from the human one so viscerally? By a thin margin, Sloot preferred having his toes reattached to finding this malodor appetizing.
He tried not thinking about it. More important things required his concentration, not that he needed a reason to avoid the strangely tantalizing redolence of months-old piles of corpses.
His remains would be beneath the big pile. Even without another grisly demonic instinct leading him to his own mortal remains, his luck wouldn’t have it any other way.
The next several hours surrendered to the blessed fog of immemory. For the rest of his days, Sloot would remember it as a long and fitful nap beset with a nightmare about sorting and cataloging cast-off body parts. Upon waking, he would recall a zombie missing half his face saying, “I don’t remember asking you to do that.”
He got the watch, though. In the end, that was what mattered. As he left the cathedral, a dark alley to his right made a summoning noise.
“Pssst,” said the darkness. Or, more accurately, Walter the Undying. Flavia was with him.
Sloot sighed. He thought about simply walking off into the night and pretending he hadn’t heard. Unfortunately for Sloot, pretending was a form of creativity. He walked into the alley.
“Hello, Sloot,” sang Flavia. Even if he hadn’t been able to see her, he’d have known by the sound of her voice that she was wearing her enormous and nearly genuine smile.
“Flavia,” Sloot replied as cordially as he could manage. “Walter.”
“It’s ‘Walter the Undying,’” Walter corrected him.
“Sorry,” said Sloot before he was able to stop himself. “Fancy running into the two of you here,” he added, knowing he’d fully grasped sarcasm in the moment.
“It’s been a while since you’ve checked in,” Flavia gently chided.
“Since the last time I saw you at Dark Corners,” Sloot spat, more vehemently than he’d intended. In a flash, some spark of unbidden gumption grabbed the reins and spurred him on. “How did that go, by the way? Did you stand idly by while Mrs. Knife tried to murder my friend, or did you help hold him down?”
“That wouldn’t be your friend who tried threatening us, would it?”
The fall from a high horse is particularly painful. Sloot could only point out that horse heights were relative.
“That’s the only language you understand, isn’t it?” Sloot’s eyes went wide with the shock of hearing that sort of bravado come from his own mouth.
“I don’t—”
“And before you feign ignorance, please recall that my girlfriend is in the lowest circle of the Inferno because of you, and now you’re threatening her with worse. Would you even be talking to me if you didn’t want me to deliver the Domnitor to your clutches, long may he reign?”
Flavia’s easy, graceful smile fell. Her eyes darkened, her breathing became audibly raspy, and her shoulders hunched in a way that led Sloot to believe she just might be ready to pounce.
“Can we please try it my way now?” Walter the Undying interjected.
Flavia scowled and hissed at him through her nose. “Fine,” she said. “I suppose I knew it would come to this eventually.”
What was going on with Sloot, exactly? He should have been quivering with dread, worrying over what Walter was about to do. That’s not to say that he wasn’t worried, but there was a certain strength standing next to his cowardice. A watchful older brother glaring back at the threat. It made him feel like he still might get hurt, but that it would be all right in the end.
Sloot’s eyes went dark. His claws came out.
“Be careful, mortal,” Sloot warned. He only hoped that Walter was as terrified by the warning as he was.
“I want to bargain with you,” Walter replied.
Sloot salivated. The rational part of his brain that wanted nothing to do with these monsters and their ridiculous schemes was given a librarian-strength shushing from elsewhere in his mind.
“What sort of bargain do you have in mind?” Sloot drummed his fingertips together just beneath his nose as his curiosity took over. A bargain! It wasn’t the first time he’d been asked; it was getting harder to resist.
“A number two,” said Walter. He produced a contract from within the folds of his robes and handed it over. “Souls for earthly power, a standard deal. I’d promise that we haven’t changed any of the standard clauses, but you’re going to take time to read them anyway.”
“Souls?” Sloot was horrified. “Standard deal? They have numbers for these?”
Walter nodded. “A number one is tricking someone into loving you. A number three is revenge, and a number four is revenge against someone who stole your love with a number one. That’s mathematically clever.”
“Three plus one.”
“Nothing gets past you.”
Sloot read the disclosures. He had no way of knowing that Walter had not, in fact, modified any of the standard clauses, or even tried to sneak in any nullification options. The arbitration clause stated they’d resolve any differences by staring into the Red Void of Absolute Cacophony until one of them started bleeding from the eyes. He stopped.
“Why?” he asked.
“Why what?”
“Why the change of tactics?”
“Pragmatism,” said Walter.
Flavia winced. “We don’t often resort to that sort of thing. Coercion is so much more effective. I still think this is a huge mistake, but Walter the Undying thinks you’ll be more amenable.”
“So your threats against my friends haven’t paid off quickly enough?”
“Oh, Sloot,” said Flavia, batting her eyelashes. “That’s such an ugly way to put it. I mean, yes, but—”
“No,” said Sloot.
“No?” Flavia’s lower lip quivered.
“No. You can keep your souls.” It felt as though a stone had dropped into his gut for turning down such a favorable deal. He’d have a lot of not thinking about those feelings to do later.
Flavia and Walter turned to look at each other.
“I really thought that was going to work,” said Walter.
“We’ll sweeten the pot,” said Flavia. “No more threats against Myrtle, I promise!”
“Still no, thank you.” Sloot had an even harder time turning that offer down, but his sense of duty wouldn’t have it. The Domnitor, long may he reign, in the clutches of his most brutal and draconian enforcers? Myrtle was already banished to the lowest circle of the Inferno. How much worse could demotion to demon 100th class be?
“What if we got her out?”
It was just as well that Sloot was left speechless at that. His rebuke for their insolence started with “please,” had a “pardon me for saying” in the middle and ended with “if you wouldn’t mind.” The word “anticlimactic” would have claimed new territory.
Get Myrtle out? Now there was a compelling offer. How could he reject an opportunity to save his girlfriend from the bowels of the Inferno without considering it? Besides, what was his plan? A dance contest? He may as well hinge her fate on the sun rising in the west or Salzstadt dropping to Second Most Fashionable City in the Old Country Travel Guide.
“How?” asked Sloot.
“You leave that to us,” said Walter.
“I would,” said Sloot, “naturally. That’s how contracts work. But I won’t.”
“Why not?”
“For starters, I know how Infernal Bureaucracy works. Well, not entirely. Nobody understands it entirely. That’s just madness.”
“You’ve got that right,” said Walter.
“Anyway, you can’t do it. There’s no form.”
Flavia chuckled. “Oh, Sloot. I thought you said you knew how Infernal Bureaucracy works. We wouldn’t fill out forms, we’d do bribes! That’s how things get done down below.”
“Of course,” said Sloot, “everybody knows that.”
“Then why—”
“Because everybody knows it. Including the Prime Evils and their bureaucrats. Bribery is the fourth largest economy down below! You don’t think it’s regulated by a committee? There’s nothing more sinister than regulatory committees.”
“True,” said Flavia, “but if you bribe them—”
“Spare me your petty conniving,” Sloot snarled, his forked tongue lashing out in barely-controlled demonic fury. “There are forms to track those bribes, and forms to track the bribes to work around those, and so on, into a fiery bureaucratic infinity! If you think for a moment you can—”
“You’re upset,” Flavia interjected.
“How dare you?” demanded three octaves of Sloot’s voice. Horns shot from his forehead and recurved behind his ears. His pointy tail lashed gouges in the cobblestones, and the fire in his eyes cast a malefic glow on the pair of them.
“I’m not wrong,” Flavia squeaked.
“Oh,” said Sloot, his visage slowly contracting to look more like his proper self.
“Think it over,” said Walter. “And be quick. We’ll soon have to make good on our … promises.”
“You mean threats.”
“If you prefer.”
He didn’t, of course. Sloot wished he could make the bargain. Beyond the allure of demonic bargain making, he liked being in agreement. With everyone. All the time. He didn’t like quibbling over restaurants, much less the fates of nations. But delivering the Domnitor, long may he reign, into the clutches of Mrs. Knife’s allies under threats to his loved ones? The social awkwardness of a stern “no, thank you” would simply have to be endured.
Later. He probably had just enough time to strut his stuff at the Infernal Ball, get a look at the Axial Ledger, and save Myrtle himself. With her help, he’d deal with Flavia and Walter the Undying after.
Sartorial Mind Games
“It’s about time,” said Willie. “You’ve needed a complete overhaul since I’ve known you.”
“Let’s not be too drastic,” said Sloot. “Just a little bit of flair, I think.”
“You think?” Willie scoffed. “I don’t know where to begin!”
“Vhere,” sang Bartleby in a corrective tone.
Willie sighed and rolled his eyes. “There aren’t any other vampires here, Bartleby. I promise I’ll pronounce it when—”
“Vhen other vampires are around, you’ll slip up if you don’t practice.”
