Rated PG for language
by Jess Nevins
Special thanks to Alicia Germer for an incredible editing job.
What Has Come Before: The Gunhawk, an aging American cowboy hero, has joined several other "special" individuals in London in search of a serial killer. This search has brought them beneath the streets of London, into the sewers, a place that the Gunhawk's new teammates are quite reluctant to go.
Two hours later `Ona' stopped in front of an old, round, wooden door. He had led the other four on a long, winding, confused trail through enormous passages just below the city streets, through which chest-high torrents of icy cold water mixed with sewage had roared, forcing the five to rope themselves to each other when they had been forced to cross the rivers. He had led them deep into the earth, what the Gunhawk thought was 500 feet and more underground, into tiny, cramped, square tunnels where, uncountable years before, the floors had been laid with large blocks of stone and in which the dust lay feet deep, and only the footprints of their prey showed that anyone had gone through the passageways in a century's time. They had gone down and up ladders, across stone causeways (the floor beneath unseen in the dark but definitely far below) and across rope bridges and down earthen ramps. They had gone through open, airy tunnels with only a thin stream of water and refuse, and through tiny passageways where the water had threatened to drown them. Some of the tunnels they had gone through were surprisingly clean, while others were like something out of the imagination of an Aubrey Beardsley, or worse, with layers of a green and brown substance coating the walls and floors and enormous, vile stalactites of filth hanging from the ceiling. ‘Ona' had trotted ever onward, moving confidently despite the dark, often forcing the other four to hasten to catch up with him, lest they be left behind and stranded. Sometimes the trail led to crossroads where the trash and refuse was evidence of recent human habitation. Other times they forged on through dimly-lit hallways that looked untouched since pre-Roman times. When they were in the tunnels near the surface the Gunhawk was sure that it was just the five of them, but when ‘Ona' led them too deeply beneath the earth the Gunhawk began to hear what sounded like the padding of small feet continually dogging their footsteps and halting a second after they stopped. Sometimes the Gunhawk and the others surprised convocations of large, pale and obscenely bloated rats. While the five walked ahead the rats, chittering their rage, scattered and reassembled behind the five, glaring at them with evil, strangely intelligent yellow eyes. Worst of all, in the older and more intricately-carved tunnels the Gunhawk was seized by the feeling that they weren't alone, that the tunnels themselves were aware of them and did not want them there. In most of the tunnels the walls were rough, the chisel marks still visible, but in some tunnels the walls and ceilings were covered with complex and sinister-looking carvings and mosaics and reliefs, leaving the Gunhawk with the feeling that the reliefs hadn't so much been carved by men as grown by the tunnels themselves. The Gunhawk had felt that creeping sense of being watched by the environment once before among the burial mounds of the Mescalero near Fort Bowie. He hadn't liked the feeling then, and he cared less for it now.
‘Ona' pointed at the door, on which was inscribed "48E" in the same glowing yellow letters they had found at every crossroads in London Under. ‘Ona' said, "He's...behind here. He and others."
The Gunhawk reached for his guns only to have Wisdom stop him with a gesture. "Let's not...I think we should try to...negotiate, if at all possible. We're on enemy ground, and there are many more of them than of us. I think we should ask, then threaten, then leave. We are near the South Docks, I believe. There is a Branch office with a wireless set beneath St. George's Stairs, not far from here. If Horrabin refuses to hand over the murderer, we will retreat and contact Mycroft. He will, I hope, forgive us this trip and authorize a more vigorous response, and we will then return in force. But no bloodshed until that time, Mr. Jones, I beg of you, if it can at all be avoided." The Gunhawk grunted his assent, and Wisdom turned to Sultana. "As for you, this is not to turn into a repeat of Oudemon, is that clear?" Sultana glowered but nodded curtly. As ‘Ona' pushed the door open the Gunhawk wondered at the crack in her veneer. While Silence and Wisdom had clearly felt the same crawling sensation of being watched in the deeper tunnels, Sultana had seemed untroubled, almost serene. Now, though, she was anything but.
Gunhawk was second through the doorway after ‘Ona' and in front of Wisdom and Silence, with Sultana acting as the rearguard. The room they walked into was completely dark, the sort of black that the Gunhawk had only found deep in the mines of Colorado. After ten steps ‘Ona' stopped. The door behind them immediately slammed shut and numerous torches in the room flared alight.
The five were standing on the floor of what had once been an amphitheatre, clearly of Roman construction. Despite the pressure and friction of centuries and feet and bodies, the stone of the floor and the few seats they could see was only slightly worn smooth. Several round wooden doors, like the one the five had entered through, lined the floor of the theatre. Columns carved into the sides of the walls reached up to a baroquely-carved dome a hundred yards above the floor of the amphitheatre. There were several dozen rows of seats, encircling and surrounding the floor, and nearly every row was filled with hundreds of beggars, young and old, healthy and sick, well-dressed and ragged, whole and maimed, and all suddenly pointing guns or knives or sticks and howling curses and imprecations at the five. And seated in a large carved wooden throne hanging in straps from the ceiling, his poles balanced across his lap, was the grotesque, giggling figure of Lord Horrabin.
He hung thirty feet over the floor, and the five below him could not tell whether his face was made up or genuinely monstrous. His body was long and spindly, and he was dressed in the colorful outfit of Joey The Clown. The flesh visible on his face and neck and arms was a sickly, corpse-white, and his mouth was a garish red slash drawn up in a too-wide smile. His yellow eyes glittered with malice and amusement, and his voice was a piercing, shrill piping as he welcomed the five. "Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of rye, five foolish flunkies, come to my house to die!"
As the crowd laughed Wisdom took two steps forward, removing his hat as he did. Craning his neck upwards, he said, "I represent Her Majesty Queen Victoria, and her servant Mycroft Holmes. I--"
As soon as he mentioned Mycroft's name the crowd hissed, drowning out the rest of Wisdom's words. Horrabin raised one gloved hand, and the crowd immediately quieted. His voice cracking as he assumed a hideous falsetto, Horrabin imitated Queen Victoria. "We are aware of the reason for your presence before Us. And We are not amused. You seek one of Our faithful subjects, and We will not relinquish him to the agents of Our enemy."
As the crowd laughed at his sally the Gunhawk stepped forward and muttered into Wisdom's ear, "I think we best pound leather, Wisdom, he ain't in a mood to listen."
Wisdom nodded, but when he opened his mouth to speak Horrabin said, "We trust you are familiar with fairy tales, that you recall the stories your nannies told you as children?"
In an exaggeratedly fey gesture, he pointed at a door near the one they entered through. Still smiling but no longer sounding at all amused or like Queen Victoria, he said in an increasingly loud shriek, "The door flew open and in they ran, THE GREAT LONG RED-LEGGED SCISSOR-MAN!"
The door burst open, spraying splinters and hunks of wood across the floor of the amphitheater. Through the opening walked something strange. Seeing it, Wisdom sank whimpering to his knees, Silence uttered a cry of fear, and Sultana jumped backwards, suddenly pale.
It was fifteen feet tall, with limbs out of proportion to its body. It had very long legs, a short torso, and long, long arms. It was roughly human in appearance, but it had no face, only a featureless head. It wore all red, its clothes a dark crimson the color of blood. Where a normal human would have hands, it had scissors, yard-long blades of gleaming silvery metal.
It radiated something the Gunhawk had felt before in his lifetime, when he had encountered the Hopi Clowns and that clawed, squid-headed thing in the South Pacific. He had felt a wrongness, a feeling of unnaturalness and evil, a sense that the thing should not, in a sane universe, exist. The Gunhawk had never tried to articulate the feeling. If asked, he would have said that it was like touching a maggot or like feeling one crawling inside an open wound.
It covered an incredible amount of ground with each stepped, its legs reaching farther than it seemed they should be able to, and within seconds it was standing only a few feet from them, its hands snapping together at them.
Afterwards the Gunhawk was not sure why he wasn't so terrified by the Scissor-Man. Wisdom and Silence and Sultana had all been nearly petrified with fright, but even though he had felt frightened it had not slowed him down any. Perhaps it was just his many years of experience in gunfights, or perhaps it was because he hadn't grown up hearing the story of the Scissor-Man as they had. (Now, if Lord Horrabin had brought in the Headless Horseman, the Gunhawk would have been in trouble) Whatever the reason, the Gunhawk shoved Silence out of his way with his left hand, yanked one of his "rail guns" from his holster with his right hand and opened fire on the thing.
Although he had not fired the gun in anger or practice in almost ten years, it still worked as if he had cleaned it only yesterday. Its "bullets" (the Gunhawk never had to load it and never saw the projectiles it fired, but he persisted for ease's sake on calling them "bullets") tore the thing apart. While the Gunhawk drew his other rail gun from his holster and turned to look at the crowd he spared a quick glance for the Scissor-Man's body, which now seemed to consist only of lengths of red cloth. There was no corpse.
The crowd of beggars watching and eagerly waiting for the slaughter (first the removal of the interlopers' thumbs, then the taking of their other body parts as was the ritual) was initially shocked into silence. Then, amidst a general roar of rage and hate, several of them swung their rifles and pistols around and fired at the Gunhawk and his companions.
Seeing their movements the Gunhawk dove to the side. He avoided their bullets, rolled, and came up firing, raking the crowd with both guns. After a few seconds of seeing their companions chewed to pieces, those with firearms dropped them and dove for cover behind the rows of seats. As the Gunhawk covered the crowd and Silence, Wisdom, and Sultana recovered sufficiently to move into action positions. Silence drew an elongated pepperbox revolver from a shoulder holster and Wisdom pulled a large golden Star of David from a side-pocket. Sultana stood in front of the four almost directly underneath Lord Horrabin, her fists clenched and her mouth turned down into a ferocious snarl.
Lord Horrabin's perhaps permanent smile never faltered, but his body language registered his shock. When he spoke again his anger was obvious. "Up the rushing mountain, down the airy glen, we dare not go a'hunting, for fear of little men!"
A door to the right of the five swung open slowly, its hinges creaking in protest. Two dozen inch-high flames floated through the gap in the door. They weaved and bobbed and made their way in a zigzag towards the five. The Gunhawk, not recognizing them, looked from them to his companions to the crowd and back to his companions; seeing Silence, Wisdom, and Sultana back away from the flames with frightened looks on their faces, the Gunhawk started backing away as well. He pointed his guns at the flames and muttered out the side of his mouth, "What in Hell are those things?"
Silence shakily pocketed the Star of David and fumbled in another pocket for another object. "The...the Spoonsize Boys...."
As the Gunhawk backed toward the door through which they had entered, with the other three behind him, he squinted and focused on the flames. Inside each of them he could just barely see tiny figures, human-shaped creatures with tiny, curved knives and malicious expressions. Something about the looks on their faces made the Gunhawk shiver. The Gunhawk tried to aim at the flames but found that their movements were deceptively fast; somehow they were never where he was pointing the gun. Within seconds the four were against the wall, and when Silence pulled on the door and said, "It won't open!" Sultana began yanking on the handle and punching and kicking the door. Her blows had no effect, and the Gunhawk, still backing up, bumped into Wisdom. The Gunhawk was beginning to feel frightened--actually frightened--when a bright white flared on the floor, dimming the flames' light and causing the Gunhawk and the others to look up at the source of the light.
"Ona" stood in the middle of the floor. He was no longer wearing the nondescript suit and tie, and his features had changed. He wore white robes that ended at his knees and elbows, and from his back sprouted four large white feathered wings. Around his head was a golden halo. Surrounding him was a corona of brilliant white light. Although the intensity of the light was such that the Gunhawk reflexively shielded his eyes with his left hand, the light somehow made the Gunhawk feel better, made the aches and twinges in his body fade and caused his fear to dissipate. The crowd, for their part, clearly disliked the light, cowering behind their seats and uttering sounds of dismay. The sinister and repellant beauty of "Ona"'s face was replaced with something purer, both his expression and the features themselves changed. The look on his face was one of anger undiluted by mitigating emotions like mercy or doubt, and his face looked strange to the Gunhawk--the cheekbones too high, the skin too tight across the bones of the face, the jaw too thin--and yet it all looked right on "Ona," like the way he had looked before was some sort of mask and he was only now revealing his true self.
"Ona" held a long, thin, sword-shaped bar of yellow flame in his right hand, and he pointed with his left at Lord Horrabin. His voice was no longer melodious but harsh and booming as he said, "It Is Not Given To Me To End Your Existence, `Lord Horrabin,' But Unless You Surrender The Murderer Mark Russett I Will Destroy Your Every Earthly Holding. I Will Reduce All Of Your Hiding Places To Dust. I Will Strip You Of Your Protective Magicks. I Will Leave You In The Mud and Earth That You So Fear. I Will Destroy Even Unto The Pettiest Working Every Spell You Have Wrought In Your Decades of Life. I Will Reduce The Efforts Of Your Labor And Sweat To The Merest Dust. I Will Make Such A Fire of Your Works That The Eyes of Heaven And Mycroft Holmes Will Look Upon You And Know You For What You Are, And You Will Be Left As You Were When You Began."
As the crowd leapt from their hiding places and bolted for the nearest exits, Lord Horrabin said nothing, his smile increasingly rictus-like. The Gunhawk, who had had many years of experience in reading men's moods and emotions from their postures, saw the fear and tension in Horrabin as clearly as if he had started screaming. Horrabin managed to keep his fingers from shaking as he snapped them, and another, smaller, square wooden door on the floor of the auditorium was pushed open and a shaking, dirty, pale, red-haired man, his hands tied together, was shoved forward. He stumbled and fell to his knees in front of the Gunhawk and the others.
He looked up, fearful, gibbering and spitting saliva, as "Ona" took two long strides forward and loomed over him. "Ona" said, "Mark Russett, Do You Confess Your Sins And Ask Mercy Of The Lord?"
"Russett" held his hands over his head almost prayerfully as he stammered, "I didn't do it, guv, it wasn't me, I had nothing against those haybags, you have to believe me!"
The flaming sword came around in the blink of an eye, removing the man's head from his shoulders and sending the body messily sprawling. Wisdom turned an outraged face on "Ona" and said, "What did you do that for? He still had to serve trial!"
"Ona" looked down on Wisdom with an unreadable expression. "He Was Tried And Convicted."
"By whom? You can't just take justice into your own hands!"
"His Soul Was Tried And Found Wanting."
Wisdom opened his mouth, clearly taken aback, then closed it. The Gunhawk looked up to see Lord Horrabin's reaction, but seeing that he had fled said, "Why don't we, ah, start makin' our way back to Mike. I'd, ah, like to be gone from this here place."
Without speaking "Ona" walked from the room, the aura of light around him beginning to flicker and fade and his sword disappearing from his hand. The Gunhawk ran to catch up with him, the others slowly following.
The Gunhawk walked alongside "Ona" for several hundred yards, thinking of how best to ask the questions in his mind. By the time he decided on the right approach "Ona" looked as he had when the Gunhawk had first seen him: the white light and robes and wings were gone and he once again looked handsome and repulsive.
The Gunhawk tried to keep the reluctance out of his voice as he said, "What's your name? I mean, your real name?"
"Ona" looked at him for a long moment, as if deciding whether to trust him, and the Gunhawk found himself flinching under the disquietingly knowledgeable look. "Ona" finally said, "My real name is nothing you could pronounce. The Hebrews called me `Abbadona,' and that is as good a name as any."
"Do the others know?"
Abbadona did not respond for several seconds, and the Gunhawk looked behind him to see if Wisdom's presence was somehow intimidating Abbadona, but Wisdom and Silence and Sultana were out of sight behind them. Finally, "Yes. They know. Mycroft told them."
"So you're..." the Gunhawk found the words hard to say. "You're really an angel?"
Abbadona only nodded.
"So the...the Bible is true? The Earth was made in only seven days, and...and all that?"
Abbadona looked at him for a long second, expressionless. "That I am not allowed to tell you."
Taken aback, the Gunhawk stopped in his tracks. "You mean, Mycroft told you you can't tell anyone about Heaven and Hell?"
A faint hint of a smile crossed Abbadona's face and was gone. "No, it was Someone Else. You must discover those truths for yourself."
The Gunhawk mulled that over for several yards, not really paying attention as he walked through calf-high water. "But...if you're an angel, why don't you, I don't know, fly over London and let people know you exist? You could...if people knew for sure that God existed, they'd...they'd act differently."
Abbadona's expression softened slightly. "I am...not that kind of angel."
"I don't get you."
Abbadona did not respond, and when the Gunhawk looked at him he would not meet the Gunhawk's eyes.
The Gunhawk waited, but Abbadona would not speak. The Gunhawk finally said, "You ain't what kind of angel?"
Abbadona's face, compelling and yet revolting, grew sad as he said, "I am not an Annunciator. I...."
The Gunhawk shook his head and looked at the tunnels through which the pair walked.
When Abbadona finally spoke again, it was in the lowest of whispers. "I am not given the honor of preaching the Word of The Presence."
"Not allowed? But why?"
The realization, when it finally hit the Gunhawk, made him leap several feet to the side and reach for his guns. "You're...you're one of the...the...."
Abbadona's face held an almost ineffable combination of sadness and regret. "I am one of the Fallen, yes."
Abbadona continued walking, then stopped and turned to look at the Gunhawk, who was pale beneath his perpetual tan. Abbadona said, "You have nothing to fear from me."
The Gunhawk did not find the angel's words at all reassuring but started to walk forward and eventually came alongside Abbadona. The Gunhawk continued to keep as much distance as possible between him and Abbadona and did not speak. It was finally Abbadona who broke the silence. "You have more questions to ask me."
"Yeah, but...I mean...."
"I am not going to hurt you, Gunhawk. I am only allowed to destroy a few souls, and I would not take you in any case."
The Gunhawk looked at him with raised eyebrows. "How come you called me ‘Gunhawk'? Everyone else ‘round here calls me ‘Mr. Jones.'"
"That is only your name. The Gunhawk is who you are."
The Gunhawk nodded his head and kept walking. "I thought all of you were in, y'know, Hell."
Abbadona's face was expressionless as he said, "`Think'st thou that I--'"
The Gunhawk found himself completing Abbadona's sentence. "`--who saw the face of God, and tasted the eternal joys of Heaven, am not tormented with ten thousand hells, in being deprived of everlasting bliss?"
Abbadona's smile was small and sad, and he suddenly looked very, very old. "Marlowe was right, you know."
"How did...if y'don't mind muh askin'...how did you get here? And if you're here, are there others like you around?"
Abbadona shook his head. "No. I alone walk the Earth. The other Fallen are...Below."
"Okay, I'll bite. Why you?"
Abbadona sighed, expressing centuries of guilt and shame in one exhalation. "When we...rebelled...against The Presence, I knew I was doing wrong. It was...."
The Gunhawk looked behind him and stopped and listened but heard nothing. "Are Wisdom and them others gonna be okay? Sounds to me like we lost ‘em."
Abbadona absently shook his head. "No, they are taking another way."
The pair resumed walking. Gunhawk waited for Abbadona to speak but grew impatient and decided to prompt him. "You knew you was doin' wrong? Then how come...?"
After a moment's silence Abbadona said, "I have spent a lifetime wondering that. The lifetime of one of my kind, which is beyond what you can imagine.
"It was...an impulse, I suppose. `It seemed like a good idea at the time' is not a response accepted in any religion, and yet...no, even that is not accurate. When the Morningstar stormed the gates of the Shining City, and war came to the streets of Paradise, we were all of us confronted with a choice. And I, I suppose I chose the side that I did because I imagined that somehow the universe would be improved. The Presence does not interfere in your doings, and I thought that a poor policy. You are all so short-lived, you mortals; I thought you needed guidance.
"And so I turned against the other Daimons. And yet even as I did so I knew I was wrong. What mind can penetrate to the core of The Presence, or know even a fraction of Its knowledge? The Presence created the universe and later us. How could a mere angel begin to comprehend what The Presence knows, or what It plans?
"I knew this. And I knew we would be defeated. As we were. And we were cast...Below. I asked forgiveness, and seeing the Star of the Morning and his brothers for what they were, I reproved them for their pride and their blasphemy.
"Like the others, I was punished. Unlike the others, I knew in my soul that I deserved it. I continued to ask forgiveness of The Presence, but I did not begrudge my lot.
"Eventually one of my former companions, Shaftiel, appeared before me. Shaftiel is one of those to whom was given the supervision of Below; he--"
Gunhawk gestured, and Abbadona stopped speaking. "I thought Ole Scratch was in charge of Hell--better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven, and all that?"
"The Morningstar no more rules the Inferno than you rule your body. Milton's blindness went beyond his eyes. Although in his case the desire for beauty in his poetry led him astray from the truth of the vision he was granted. The Adversary is the Inferno; as souls suffer, he suffers. It is only when it is emptied and every soul redeemed that he, too, shall be allowed to return to Paradise.
"No, the Morningstar does not rule Below. The punishment of the Fallen and of the souls of the damned was given to what you would call angels. Shaftiel--"
Gunhawk said, "Now hold on there. Y'mean to tell me it ain't demons and devils that are torturing the dead, it's angels?"
"Yes."
"But...angels are supposed to be good!"
"And so they are. They do as The Presence wills, to help the damned atone for their sins. That good beings must do this may be hard for you to understand, Gunhawk, but what would be truly intolerable would be if the torments of the damned should be left to those with evil in their souls.
"Shaftiel appeared before me and presented me with the terms of my redemption: I was to wander the mortal universe, doing good deeds and fighting evil in all its manifestations. At the end of time I will be allowed to resume my place among the Seraphim."
The Gunhawk made no response, puffing on a cigar as he and Abbadona made their way through the tunnels. After a few minutes the Gunhawk said, "You're talking a lot better than you were before."
"Some choice was left to me in who I told of my real self. Ofttimes the gift of speech is taken from me, and I must needs serve The Creator in other ways."
The Gunhawk grunted. "Sounds t'me like yew got a tough row to hoe, friend."
Abbadona shrugged. "It is no more than I deserve."
Abbadona turned left, down a small passageway, and then climbed up a ladder and emerged on Craven Street. The pair walked down the cramped, dung-filled street toward Trafalgar Square, and the Gunhawk looked up into the dimming, snow-filled sky and clapped Abbadona on the shoulder. "Sounds t'me like you need to start drinkin'. No better time to get started than the present, eh?"
Abbadona sighed. "Perhaps I do, at that."
The two walked into the crowds of Trafalgar Square and were soon lost to view.
Author's Notes:
The Scissor-Man, and the quote introducing him, is from Heinrich Hoffman's extremely twisted fairy tales, Struwwelpeter: Vile Stories For Little Boys And Girls. The Spoonsize Boys are from an old English fairytale whose provenance I've been unable to discover.
Abbadona is from Klopstock's epic poem "The Messiah," written in 1794. His personality and history are essentially as given here, although his "redemption" is my own invention.
For more on these characters, see the upcoming series Fin de Siècle, by me, on the Tapestry page.