The Clarity of Cold Steel

THE UNDERCITIES REEK of carbon and coal and fuel exhaust all tinged bitter with humanity’s continual and downward spiral. Homeless dregs litter the hewn-rock streets, their bodies slung about like refuse, some sleeping, some gorked out of existence, some dead of CCMP — chronic carbon monoxide poisoning. A mundane occurrence down here as well as a certainty. The only uncertainty is how long it’ll take.

Coffin’s Grasp. An apropos name for this hellhole if ever there was one.

We keep a low profile, plying the hostels and fleabag inns, slinking through alleyways, staying under wraps, which is to put it gently.

Air exchange machines rumble continuously, chugging and pumping air through leviathan manifolds, extending long sinuous pipes snaking up and down, piercing the cavern roof, shaking the ground beneath. And the trogs and locks that populate the never-ending caverns are no picnic, either. They’re all a vaguely translucent blue with goggle eyes that seem to stare on, looking like wide-eyed fish as they trudge through the ominous deep. Wide-eyed for certain, except when they catch a glimpse of us, Nik and Brooklyn and myself; then those wide eyes squeeze near closed in brute suspicion.

The church we’re staking out is the Church of His Holy Ashen Father. It’s carved dead center into one of the vast pillars holding up the wide expanse of midnight cavern ceiling enveloping Coffin’s Grasp. Chiseling effigies and boring holes, all for the glory of God, into the one thing holding up the sky cannot be a good idea, but the Catholic Church has been renowned for poor decisions across the globe for millennia, so why not stay the course?

Clipper and I have the back pew all to ourselves. I keep my ash-mask up for the obvious reason, but it’s the anonymity it provides I’m digging most. Black lung takes weeks to set in and kill you while lynch mobs tend to work at a slightly more accelerated rate. I plan to be out of here long before either happens.

A capital plan, but the church is packed shoulder to shoulder with warped humanity. The hewn basalt pews are practically over spilling. People cough continuously, standing shoulder to shoulder in the hacking gloom. Black lung. CCMP. COPD. And cancer, of course. I can feel all four coming on as the ceremony starts and a priest marches out, altar boy preceding, carrying some implements no doubt of heavenly significance.

“That’s him,” Clipper whispers, coughs, raising a finger as the priest mounts the altar. Clipper’s pale, sweaty, and he goes a whiter shade of pale and starts to tremble, blubber, withdraw, as he lays eyes on the priest.

Father O’Malley: short, pudgy, receding hairline. He’s younger looking than I imagined, has a youthful quality that probably helps him with his business. Extracurricular and otherwise. Doesn’t look like his morlock and trog flock; he looks like someone’s favorite uncle, though his red nose tells he probably takes his sacraments seriously, especially the blood of his Christ. We all have our vices.

“You sure?”

Clipper just stares, eyes wide, consumed by visions I want no part of seeing.

“Been a few years.” I nudge him with an elbow, break his space.

He flinches, blinks, nods, adamant.

An old lady with one arm and a ladle — a fucking ladle — for a prosthetic hand turns at our whispers, purses her desiccated lips, gives us the old evil eye as she shushes us. Clipper raises a hand her way in apology, wilts, nods to me, swallows.

I tell her to fuck off. “Making friends, influencing people,” I hum to myself.

Clipper keeps his head down.

Kneeling, we wait out the rest of the ceremony, standing and kneeling and kneeling and standing till my back’s burning and knees barking. At least it’s exercise, even if it is of the ‘in futility’ kind. I pass the time by weighing the pros and cons of slamming my head into the back of the stone pew in front of me.

It’s a long ceremony. Father O’Malley’s no Adonis, not like me, but his voice does carry with it considerable weight. He’s smooth, mellifluous, and jaws on in a rhythm not unpleasing to the ear. A natural speaker. Good cadence. Lulling. Hypnotic…

I prop toothpicks into my eyelids to maintain verticality. Nikunj and Brooklyn are off somewhere keeping eyes on exits, doing their due diligence, keeping out of sight and mind. The cops have been on our trail for days now and it won’t pay to get caught anywhere and especially not down in the bowels of hell. Topside, they’d read us our rights before they shoot us. Down here? We’d be lucky enough to reach for the sky before it came crashing down on us.

At the close of the ceremony, the altar boy leads a procession down the central aisle, carrying before him a great black crucifix. Looks like some pagan idol savages might use before force-feeding virgins down volcano maws. Father O’Malley disappears out the front doors of the church and takes station as his followers muddle past. I notice he shows keen interest in the morlock youths.

Clipper and I are the last to leave, and in fact, we don’t. Cloaked in the darkness of the rear of the church, we kneel and we wait and we watch. The floor vibrates beneath our feet, the rumbling engine of some air exchange manifold buried far beneath.

Father O’Malley reenters once the procession has fled, guiding the altar boy by a hand gripped upon the lad’s shoulder, back up the long aisle. Longer for the kid, no doubt. Guiding. Corralling. Call it what you will. Tears creep down the altar boy’s cyanotic cheeks.

As they pass the altar and head for a door out the back, I stand abruptly and stride after, leaving Clipper behind, a melted mess slathered across the pew.

The door Father O’Malley and the boy disappeared behind is locked when I reach it, but luckily I have the key. Lockpicks digging, I have it open in less than a jiff.

Father O’Malley’s naked from the waist up, and he’s sipping wine as I open the door. “Eh—?” He raises an eyebrow my way and reaches for his robe. “What the hell’s the meaning of this?”

“Don’t move.” My Webley-Colt’s in hand, stretched out in the least pleasant way to say hello that I know how.

Father O’Malley’s hand hovers just above his pile of shorn linen. Without glancing at the altar boy, I tell him to leave and never come back.

Sniffling, goggle eyes streaming, the boy hustles past.

“My son—” Father O’Malley implores, looking after the boy, but I cut him off.

“He ain’t your son. And if he was, he’d have petitioned for an abortion in utero.”

“It’s Father—”

“You deaf?” I stride forward, gun hand leading, thumb levering the hammer back.

Father O’Malley studies my eyes, the only thing visible for the ash-mask covering my face. Don’t think he likes what he sees. I wouldn’t. It’s comforting knowing exactly what’s going to happen, or it’s horrible. Just depends on which way the gun’s pointed.

“Déjà vu?” I ask him.

“This is a poor, poor church, my son,” he begins by licking his lizard lips. “We have no—”

“You’re going to answer my questions.”

“Well,” he hesitates, clears his throat, nods, “then ask, and may God have mercy upon your soul.”

“Ain’t my god,” I say. “Ain’t yours either, I’d surmise, if he’s worth anything.”

He just glares.

“Five years ago you were systematically raping a boy up in Red Chapel.” My gun is aimed, my arm stone.

“I…” his face goes stunned white, but he recovers, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Too many in the stable to keep track?” I almost shoot him right then. “A hunchback boy of about twelve.” His eyes widen at the word ‘hunchback.’ He remembers, and he can’t hide that he remembers. “Goes by Clipper now. But that boy’s gone now and the young man left ain’t much more than a husk. Did your due diligence on his behalf, didn’t you? He says you used him for years. Years.”

“Really, I…” He’s squirming hard now, trying to look past me to the door, his lizard brain firing in triplicate for survival, escape, anything. When a man’s most dangerous.

“The cat who pinched you wore a metal mask. Spoke with a lisp. A short bloke.” I hold out a hand about shoulder high to me. “I want to know who he is. Where to find him. I want to know everything you know.”

Father O’Malley’s pupils dilate an instant, but he carries on like the stalwart soldier, hope a wistful glimmer on a distant vista as he’s dealt a card to play. “I know not of whom you speak. You must…” he jaws on, straightens, hands working as he’s gaining steam and chugging along.

Damn shame his tracks end in a brick wall.

My Webley-Colt discharges like the huff of a cat disgorging a hairball, and suddenly Father O’Malley’s clutching the line of red at his shoulder from the broadhead fletch that just zipped past. “Lie to your congregation, lie to your victims, don’t lie to me.”

“Please.” He’s on his knees. “Okay.” Begging. “I lied. There is money here. I can—”

I fire again. It goes wide, way wide, but his veneer’s cracking hard so my point’s still valid.

“Please, that was all addressed—”

“Addressed?” I look around. “No. It was not addressed. You were not addressed. You were shuffled down into the dregs. Out of sight. Out of mind. The only difference is you’re raping morlocks now.” I pause, take aim at his face, close one eye, feeling my gun shiver with each beat of my heart. “Who was it that covered for you? One of your colleagues? Hmm? Another priest? Or the bishop of Red Chapel maybe? You two old friends? It was someone with juice.”

“My people need me—”

“No, they don’t.” I take a step forward. “The man in the iron mask.” He can see I ain’t fooling, ain’t missing. “Who is he?”

His shock’s gone now, and he knows he ain’t walking out of here. He’s accepted it but still wants to live. Somewhere. Somehow. He’s sweating. Mouth’s dry. A rat in a trap. Can he chew his leg off in time? Barter a play? My gut says no. He opens his mouth to lie to me, but I cut him off. “When word got out about your habit, the church sent this masked man to deal with you. I know because Clipper saw him. Said he’d never forget him. And I want to know how I can find him. Where I can find him. I want to know who he is. What he is. I want to know everything you know, and I want to know now.”

“Please, I don’t know anything.”

I shake my head.

“I’m nothing to them now!” he implores in that mellifluous voice so out of place in that dumpy body. “That’s why they exiled me down here.” His grubby paws are up toward me, black crescents of coal dust underneath each fingernail, two fists gripped together, fingers interlaced as he falls penitent to his knees, begging to God, begging to Mister Jesus, begging to me. “For the love of God, have mercy.”

“Tell me what I want.”

“He’ll kill me.”

“No, he won’t,” I say, and damn me hard if I’m lying.