A Lower Deep

any sense out of it. They approached and kissed, taking turns pricking their wrists, licking the droplets, and smearing each other's face with blood. The flames wavered as a real hint of sex majik filled the room. I held my hand to the glass. Bursts of yellow sparks popped painfully around my fingers, and the girl writhed as though I'd scratched her. Walt continued watching. Nothing fit together.

Something's wrong, Self said. You know what I mean?

Yes.

This reminds me of . . .

Me too. Neither of us liked talking about the beginning.

His breath cracked the remaining paint. I'm getting bad vibes. Let's get out of here.

No.

Quickly. Now.

First, the girl.

Forget her, we've already got one in the car! I leaned back ready to smash the glass and he hissed, Do that shit and you're so dead, as if daring me. Variant majiks are in motion. She's no one to care about. Just bait, a thing on the floor lying in the open trap. You've got to let this debacle play out.

Fred Rumsey untied the teenager and dragged her stumbling into the Baphomet pentagram. She sobbed and struggled wearily until he dumped her into the circle, scuffing the chalk marks and erasing all-important characters-her head cracked against the floor and she fell over semiconscious and groaning for Mel. The arcana intensified until the hair at the back of my neck crawled, electrified.

The Rumsey's took off their robes and continued sharing the knife, cutting at each other's naked flesh, getting into it now, wielding the blade high and drawing it down fast and slicing, tittering all the while. They dragged it deeply across bodies, first one and then the other, politely handing the sticky athame back and forth, soon chopping and slashing through muscle and bone.

They were insane and they had no real style. True masters at the art of mutilation would have frowned at the waste. Their blood arched and splashed madly across the room. With a final thrust Fred Rumsey shoved the blade into his wife's heart-as she grinned and mumbled, giving up one last bark of delight-then turned the knife on himself, and with a careful flick opened his carotid. He dropped heavily over his wife, and their blood pooled across the pentagram and ran around the girl. It was only going to get worse.

'Enough of this crap.'

I kicked in the window and dropped inside, the storm following as Self jabbered in the snow, the trap closing. Walt drooled and shook his head happily at me, arms filled with toys. I pulled his stroller out of the way. In the pentagram the Rumsey's' corpses vibrated, eyes bulging and blinking, teeth bared.

Invisible daggers flayed them as I watched, skin ripping back from bone. Veins, nerves, and organs danced little shimmies as the viscera smoked, yanked free from the bodies like corn being shucked. Coagulating, the blood withdrew, and all that spineless flesh slid across the floor and began merging into one large mass that hunched before the teenager like a giant toad.

Get the girl, I said.

Nuh-huh, I'm not stepping into that screwy circle. You don't know her or owe her anything. She's got no character, no soul you can see. Why do you keep doing this? You can't care about her.

I just…

You don't, no one does. She's only meat on the floor, intended for the moment. She doesn't mean anything.

Shut up already.

Will you ever listen?

Nothing else to do but get it done. Conjuring Babylonian wards of protection-head back and arms out, pinkies precisely placed to cover the lifelines of my palms-I crossed the outer boundary of the Baphomet circle. Connecting with it was like tying into a conduit of fathomless anguish-and an overwhelming love of that anguish-as red mist reared about me.

Jaws of the corpses dropped open and cackled as the charnel beast formed of their flesh started sprouting heads now. Three semi-human, insectoid faces sprang from the belly of the eight-foot toad. Two pairs of arms extended from its viscous torso, those chitinous heads excitedly stirring. I picked up Mel's girl and backed away, feeling the majik trying to chew my skin off too. I dragged her outside the pentagram and wondered if running would do me any good.

Is that Arioch? I asked.

Yes, Self said, much calmer now than he should've been. That meant running wasn't going to work. A smile tugged his lips apart. The Bishop of Worms. I haven't seen it since the goblin market in Sepharvain.

Maybe you can reminisce.

An ally of thoughtful Adramelech, Chancellor of Hades, Keeper of the Wardrobe. Watch out for the wings. It doesn't use them for flying.

Get over here and help me.

I am here and helping you, Self said. I always am.

Arioch. Impossible-these simpleton Satanists couldn't have called Lord Arioch from its sixty regions. I scanned the badly drawn chalk circle again for signs of hidden names of power, a subliminal commandment of the Infernal, or some obscure or coincidental incantation of the Lightbringer's echelon. I couldn't spot anything. The Bishop of Worms hopped forward with great scraping noises, four flaming hands stuffed with killing strokes.

Every eye on those three heads gazed at me in fury, each mouth working at once. Its voice contained multitudes, composed of the voices of half a million human and animal souls-I heard kids and women in there, dogs, cattle, and impaled ravens, the elderly evil and misbegotten, wailing beyond its words.

'And so,' it said. 'Am I a piece to be moved about in mortal games now, Necromancer?'

'There's been a mistake. I have no quarrel with you, Prince Arioch.'

Something like a snicker-myriads of whines and yelps-escaped its throats. Razor-sharp wings sprouted from its sides, expanding to the entire width of the cellar and leaving gouges in the stone walls, buzzing as those four hands worked spells I couldn't comprehend. 'I'll not be party to your gambit.'

'I-'

'Why have you tried my patience so? You and your brethren need to be made an example.'

'My brethren?'

'You've finally called forward your death, children of oblivion.'

'Now you're just being mean,' I said. Black flames of hexes filled my own fists, motes of energy rising to encircle my eyes. 'I didn't call you at all.' In the back of my mind Self pleaded with me to leave the girl and make a dash for it, knowing I wouldn't.

'You are the impetus for this travesty, and for that alone I shall set a quarter region of Pandemonium aside for you.' Twelve thousand torturers reserved throughout eternity, just for me.

Kathy Rumsey's features had been taffy-pulled along Arioch's back, widened ten times farther, but those laugh lines and that cute overbite were still plainly visible. Arioch appraised me, and I could sense the ego within the Bishop of Worms. As slayer of a hundred thousand Arab soldiers in the deserts of Medain Sali, next in line as Chancellor of Hades, he did not act without prudence. I spun mystic litany webs about the room hoping to hold it back long enough to get the infant and teenager out. Why had it mentioned my brethren?

'Give me a life and I'll leave this damnable plane for the moment, in peace,' Arioch said in all its conflicting voices. 'Settle your own debts. You can afford no less.'

'You've taken two lives already.'

'Voluntary husks tender no pleasure, nor payment.'

In a fashion, the Bishop of Worms was right. An Infernal of his stature asking-not even commanding anymore, but asking-for a single life was an incredibly polite gesture. Offering to depart without further murders proved a testament to Adramelech's influence. Even in hell chancellors were devout on keeping peace.

'How about a couple of cats?' I asked.