Page 19

Chapter 19

Some Light Dinner Torture

I would have been less irritated by the gaudy surroundings in which the seven of us were being tortured had we not had to sit out in the cold half the night while the Infernals erected a Scarlet Cathedral for the coming of the Lords Devilish. The cathedral was in no way necessary.

Here’s the thing about those who sit atop the Infernal Hierarchy: they’re a bunch of jealous and competitive fuckwits. The Lords Celestine are twelve in number? Well, then, we better have at least thirteen Lords Devilish. Auroral armour shimmers? Let’s make sure that Infernal armour positively oozes iridescence. Oh, and the Lords Celestine can cause an entire cathedral to appear wherever they choose so long as a group of idiots perform the right ritual? Behold as the Lords Devilish. . . sit around and wait for their servants to build the damned thing one spell at a time.

As much as the Lords Celestine and Lords Devilish might come off as near-identical groups of arseholes differentiated solely by their fashion choices, there are, in fact, a multitude of differences, one of which is that the Aurorals have way better shaping spells. With enough raw materials and elements nearby, an Auroral Visioneer can transmute stone, wood and even dust into a wondrous temple whose beauty would reduce even the most cynical architect to tears. Infernal magic lacks the innate sense of permanence to achieve such pompous feats. Their Artificers can, of course, twist certain debasement spells to erect vaguely similar architectural wonders, just not as quickly– or as structurally sound.

‘You know, this place is kind of a dump,’ I observed to the Lord Devilish who was lounging next to the bizarre apparatus holding me bound by my wrists and ankles. She was gnawing on the end of one of my intestines as it dangled between us from the open wound on my stomach. The experience was more nauseating than painful, to be honest. I mean, sure, the belly wound hurt like. . . well, like hells, but the nerves in my body had pretty much given up by then.

The rest of our coven were suffering equally grotesque indignities. Aradeus was chained to a post while demoniac seamstresses were stitching a huge, twitching rat tail onto his rear end. Given how often he protests about being a rat mage and not an actual rat, this was truly adding insult to injury.

Corrigan was doing an admirable job of not screaming, given he was having thin slices of an especially beloved portion of his anatomy delicately carved off and placed upon round crackers for the Lords Devilish to sample.

Shame had been taken by half a dozen malefics, each of whom had been made to look exactly like Fidick, the beatific boy who’d so deceived us, and forced Shame into committing a crime so vile that it dwarfed every indecent act she’d endured as an Angelic Emissary. The six little Fidicks were gleefully stuffing Shame into a huge metal machine of cogs and wheels, which was pumping out her pulverised bones so they could be pasted onto Alice’s horns. They were getting so obscenely large that her head was weighed down, the horns slowly grinding into the floor of the cathedral.

Oh, right: the cathedral. It was, in every sense, a near-identical replica of the Celestines’, except for being larger and decorated entirely in clashing shades of red. The thirteen thrones of the Lords Devilish did have cushioned upholstery, however, so you couldn’t accuse them of lacking innovation.

Temper sat nearby on his haunches, unmolested by the small army of demoniac functionaries enacting the many torments on the rest of us. The Lords Devilish must have been stumped by the kangaroo’s mind, unable to squeeze from his thoughts any punishment that would crush his beastly soul. Perhaps kangaroos are just unconscionably evil fuckers who can’t be grossed-out no matter what you do to them. As for Galass, well, in our little carnival of corruption, she was the carrot. Or the stick. I honestly wasn’t sure how the metaphor applied in this particular context.

‘Why aren’t they torturing me?’ she asked.

They had seated her in a comfortable chair a few feet away from my significantly less comfortable iron rack. She was unshackled, and had even been permitted to keep on her silver sublime’s gown. All the while, the thirteen Lords Devilish, magnificently attired in matching iridescent scarlet robes, watched from their various thrones. What distinguished them from one another were the contrasting styles and configurations of horns which were, honestly, jaw-dropping to behold. You wouldn’t expect all those elaborate bone spirals, curves, corkscrews, prongs, knobs and antlers to evoke such majesty, but damn, they sure looked cool. The effect of all this impressive regalia was, however, entirely ruined anytime one of them opened their fool mouths.

‘So, Cade,’ began the tallest of the Lords Devilish. His horns were like those of a gazelle protruding upwards from his broad forehead. Tiny creatures ran up and down both horns, winding around the spirals, frolicking in apparent delight. As each of the thirteen Devilish was devoted to a single experiential imperative, this must be Lord Whimsy, and he was an idiot. ‘Cade Ombra. Cadey-Cadey-Cadey.’ He was saying this in a way that was intended to sound ominous, like a gang boss shaking his head as if saddened by the prospect of an admired rival’s impending mutilation.

‘Does that arsehole have a speech impediment or something?’ Corrigan asked, still staring down as that part of himself which he valued far more than his soul was becoming less impressive by the minute. The baroque process was almost fascinating. First, a three-foot-tall malefic sous-chef would shave off paper-thin slices, which a second malefic would lightly seer on a piping-hot black-iron pan. A third chef armed with a tiny spatula carefully slid the sizzling round onto a cracker, which a fourth malefic garnished with a sprig of parsley and a sprinkle of what looked like sugared almonds. Say what you will about the ethical improprieties of Infernal cuisine, but those malefics can put together one hell of a canapé.

The dubious delicacies were being served first to the Lords Devilish, then offered to the rest of us. We politely declined, of course, although Temper, licking his lips, looked tempted until he caught Corrigan’s horrified look. The kangaroo turned to me, a despairing expression on his furry muzzle suggesting perhaps the price of friendship was too high and would there be any paella later on?

A less jaded observer might have wondered why the five of us– Temper and Galass having not yet been tortured– weren’t screaming in agony and pleading for a merciful death. Without meaning to sound immodest, the simple answer is that former mercenary war mages aren’t exactly sissies. You think funnelling mystical breaches to other realms where the laws of physics operate entirely differently from ours through entirely normal Mortal nerve endings tickles? It’s horrifyingly painful. Human bodies aren’t meant for channelling esoteric energies– your flesh, your mind, your very spirit rebels against the appalling sensations. This is why few wonderists live to old age, and none of us are quite in our right minds.

Still, torture sucks. The only relief you get from the suffering is to refuse to give the bastards the satisfaction of seeing you sweat. Hence them needing a carrot– or no, now that I think about it, Galass was definitely the stick.

‘Let’s get on with this,’ I told our Infernal captors as I nodded towards the confused, frightened, shivering seventeen-year-old no doubt wondering what they meant to do to her and how much worse it would be. ‘Are you going to torture the shit out of her or what?’

What really pissed me off about this horror show the Lords Devilish were staging was that we all knew how the final act was meant to be played: Corrigan and I would hold out until we were no good to them. Shame and Alice, being respectively angelic and demoniac, were physically more resilient than mere Mortals. As for Aradeus, well, he was a rat mage and therefore too noble even so much as to whimper. So the real way to get to us was through Galass. Her wonderism, the only form of magic drawn from the Mortal realm itself, meant she had never experienced the discomfort usually associated with spellcasting. She was the youngest wonderist in our group, so thus far she’d not had the privilege of being captured and tortured by enemy forces– as long as you skip over her entire upbringing among the Sublimes, of course. Either way, I reckoned the Lords Devilish were counting on leveraging her suffering as the stick before they offered us a carrot. In other words, all the torments, physical and psychological, being inflicted on the rest of us right now was purely for show.

‘You speak glibly of the soul-rending abuses we have in mind for the girl,’ Lord Temptation said. The horns of a stag protruded from his temples, with tiny clouds nestling within the elaborate, labyrinthine points shimmering with images of all that the beholder desired, which explained why I was currently watching dozens of flickering pictures of myself choking all thirteen of these smug pricks to death with my bare hands.

Lord Ire, whose massive twin bull horns had to have their own Infernal levitation cantrips inscribed in silver around their circumference to keep him tipping forwards when he walked, offered up this sagacious philosophical argument: ‘We can make such a ruin of the girl’s body that you will drown in your tears, Cade Ombra.’

‘I’m a woman , not a girl ,’ Galass corrected them both.

‘Seriously?’ Corrigan asked in disbelief. ‘I’m getting my cock chopped off one slice at a time here and that’s the hill you want to die on?’

Corrigan didn’t understand Galass the way I did. She’d spent her childhood hiding beneath a mask of obedience and self-denial, disguising her terror and the unconscionable abuses inflicted upon her by those to whom the abbots of her order had gifted her. Now she hid those fears behind intransigence and defiance.

‘Quit stalling,’ I cajoled our captors. ‘You, Lord Gluttony.’ I noticed he was still gnawing on the end of my intestines. ‘You’re embarrassing yourself.’ By the way, Lord Gluttony wasn’t at all what you might expect. She was gorgeous– sultry, sensuous. . . Even those weirdly curving horns coming out of her jaws were oddly alluring. But, you know, currently chewing on my intestines.

‘Cade, boyo,’ drawled Lord Whimsy, sauntering over to where Galass sat, ‘you’d best not be testing our resolve here.’ He reached out a hand to stroke her jaw. ‘There are so, so many ways we can have fun with this one.’

‘ Boyo? ’ I repeated. ‘Go fuck yourself. You claim you’re intending to violate and torture my comrade? Get to it, then.’ I jangled my chains, which was difficult since there was only a couple of inches between them and the anchor points on the rack to which I was bound. ‘It’s not as if I can stop you, so if you’re expecting me to get all weepy about her suffering, you clearly don’t get why we named ourselves the Malevolent Seven.’

‘Fucking right!’ Corrigan said, then frowned at the malefic sous-chef with the carving knife. ‘Hey, leave something for me to piss with, will you?’

‘Such defiance,’ cooed Lord Gluttony, finally letting my intestine fall from her mouth. Nobody knows how to keep a body alive better than an Infernal torturer. Gluttony rose to her feet and untied her robes. As she approached Galass, her body twisted in and around itself, as if her pale white flesh were being blown away from her skeleton by a tornado. Her aspect changed as she took on the form of a man my height, my build, my hair. . .

Okay, fair warning: this next part is gross. Really. It’s the kind of thing where I’d normally recommend closing your eyes and later pretending it never happened. But since it did happen and was intrinsically connected to what I said next, well. . . but you have been warned.

From between the legs of the Lord Devilish who now looked otherwise identical to me rose an engorged two-foot-long phallus that reared and swayed like a snake. Bone spikes protruded from the obscene organ, while tiny crab-like creatures with snapping pincers clambered up and down its length in excited anticipation.

‘Gaze into my eyes, girl,’ said Lord Gluttony with my voice, my inflections and something that I dearly hoped wasn’t any smile that had ever crossed my lips. ‘Would you like to see what he’s imagined doing to you ever since that first day whe — ?’

‘Galass, don’t listen to this bi — ’

‘Shut up,’ she snapped at me, then to Lord Gluttony said, ‘I told you before, don’t call me girl .’

I don’t understand bravery. I don’t mean, ‘I fail to comprehend how mere Mortals can exhibit such unflappable courage in the face of unimaginable horror’. I mean, I don’t get the things that come out of the mouths of courageous people– brave speeches, quiet songs of unyielding determination. Me, I’ve never been especially courageous– not when getting ugly is so much more effective.

‘Go ahead,’ I told Lord Gluttony as she stood there wearing my face and promising to visit untold horrors on a woman who, regardless of any other protective instincts I might’ve had towards her on account of how we’d first met, was a member of my coven and one of the people I admired most in the world. ‘Do what you’re going to do with her and then kill the rest of us.’

‘ Kill you?’ Lord Whimsy asked. ‘Cadey-boy, why would we do that? You’re far too useful to kill.’

Yeah, no kidding, arsehole.

I tried to lean back and make a show of relaxing, which is hard to do when you’re stretched out against an uncomfortably shaped steel sculpture with your guts hanging from the gaping wound in your belly. ‘That’s where you’ve got yourself a little problem. I mean, sure, there’s nothing any of us can do to stop you from torturing our comrade. But any idiot can see you brought us here because there’s something you need from us. Don’t get me wrong, we’ll probably do it anyway because there’s a fucking doomsday cult out there screwing with both you and the Lords Celestine and bringing the Mortal realm closer to catastrophe with every passing minute we waste here getting jerked around by you morons.’ I paused a moment, partly because I was getting perilously close to losing consciousness from blood loss and whatever happens when your internal organs spend too much time outside your body. ‘Hey, fuckstick,’ I called to Lord Gluttony, ‘look over here. Time you gazed into my eyes for a second.’

I waited until she complied. Lords Devilish aren’t prone to obeying the commands of their prisoners, so it took a while.

‘Good,’ I said when I finally had their attention. ‘Hear me now, Lords Devilish, and with every ounce of wit and insight you possess, seek out the faintest trace of falsity in my words. Whosoever touches the girl — Woman — ’ Shit. It’s really hard to give a good speech when you’re on the verge of passing out. ‘Whoever lays another hand upon her is naught but a corpse unaware that the last exhale of vital breath has already left their body. You believe this show of power will grant you an edge in your negotiations with us? Never in all the foolish gambits of a foolish species have you more cataclysmically miscalculated than you’re doing right now.’

‘Angry words for one whose own next breath is entirely at our discretion,’ said Lord Ire.

‘I don’t bluff, if that’s what you’re hoping, shit-for-horns. You had the seven of us brought here against our will to find out what we know and to work out a deal. You have roughed us up and humiliated us to show us who’s boss. That’s fine. War is an ugly business. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t rules.’

‘Oh, and whose rules are those, Cadey-Cadey-Cade?’ asked Lord Whimsy.

‘ My rules, you slack-jawed halfwit. And you’re on the verge of breaking the only one that matters. You wanted to smack us around and prove how tough you are? Fine. Mission accomplished. Now, unshackle us, heal our wounds and for the sake of all dignity get that tail off of Aradeus’ arse so we can get to the negotiations. Because if you do any permanent damage to a member of my crew– you take one teensy step over that cliff’s edge you’re too stupid to see you’re standing on– and I will make your worst enemies weep at the memory of what was left of you when I was finally done.’

Lord Ire started to speak, but I cut him off.

‘Don’t talk. Quit pretending you don’t know exactly who I am, because I’m pretty sure Tenebris gave you regular reports about me back when you were using him to sell me spells. I’m Cade-fucking-Ombra, and if the next thing that happens in this feeble excuse for a back-alley brothel isn’t me and my friends being released so we can work out the deal you brought us here to make, I will end you , motherfuckers.’

There was silence for a long while, broken only when Temper repeated, ‘Motherfucker.’ I don’t know how, but I would swear on my own grave that the kangaroo had understood every word I’d uttered and wanted the Lords Devilish to know that what I’d just said went double for him.

But maybe not; he’s just a dumb vampiric kangaroo, after all.

I’d been in plenty of stand-offs in my time, so I figured I knew all the possible ways they could end. Mayhem is common. Walking away, less so. Sadly, most belligerents usually start up again with more threats.

This was the first stand-off I’d ever been involved in that ended with applause.