The Devil Delivered and Other Tales (29 page)

“Yeah yeah yeah,” Joey said. “Big deal. So you want to tear it all down, start from scratch, but the guy who’s missing the point is you. You got too much faith in human nature, Gully. You think we ain’t naturally depraved, naturally vicious, naturally assholes—and that’s your mistake, and it’s a doozy.”

“Of course we’re all those things!” Gully snapped. “Doesn’t mean we can’t strive for something better!”

“In your dreams, Gully, and nowhere else.”

“Ohmigod,” the redcap whispered, his eyes widening on what he could see out the side window. “We’re coming to the bend, and that’s not all—there’s a monster out there, twenty stories tall at least, tearing up buildings, batting down helicopters and fighter jets!”

Gully leaned out the window, then stepped back, looking thoughtful.

Joey followed suit. “Yup,” he said, “that’s one big bastard. Wonder who he is?”

“Arthur Revell,” Gully said. “I know him only marginally, it’s true, but I don’t think I’m mistaken. He’s … changed.”

“Let me guess, the horns are new.”

Gully glanced over at Joey, his expression becoming animated. “There’s your destroyer, Joey! He’s discovered his inner self, who he is deep down inside, and now we’re all going to pay!”

“Why, what is he?”

“An artist!”

“My God,” Joey breathed, experiencing terror for the first time since facing Sool Koobie. “He’s got to be stopped!”

“It’s too late!” the redcap screamed, just as the racing train finally arrived at the bend. The 57 Wells engine seemed to leap from the rails, dragging the mass of cars with it, down the gentle slope giving the bend its rise, plowing up two huge waves of gravel, clinkers, dust, and sand—then, the engine reaching a street, the cowcatcher carved a swath through the concrete, then bucked upward—and the train of homeless victims was plummeting down the city’s main street, flinging hapless cars to either side, barreling with unstoppable momentum straight for the legislative buildings a mere seven blocks distant.

*   *   *

Arthur Revell was suffering from an orgylike explosion of lifelong chemical deprivation—no alcohol slurring his veins and arteries, no nicotine hammering his heart, no tar clogging up his lungs, no cocaine from post-performance parties, no acid from wild-eyed friends, no hash, no grass, no hemp, no peyote, no ecstacy, no speed, no mushrooms—he was in the hell of purified creativity, undulled by the oral/anal compulsive obsessions that strung out the spirit and forced on the body and mind a more reasonable pace—no longer the tortoise, but the hare; not a cicada but a moth speeding to the flame. Arthur saw before him his brief, apocalyptic glory, and answered it with a roar of soul-searing frustration.

His burning eyes fixed on the legislative dome, and beyond that, the Pyramid, Arthur took one gigantic step forward, his talons curling with desire. He opened his mouth, and a swarm of ladybugs poured forth in an eager, bloodythirsty cloud. He paused, confused, then—on a breath of cool wind came a scent that froze him in his tracks. “Peaches!” he hissed. “I smell peaches! Faye! Faye!” Arthur whirled about, found the faint scent once again, then surged forward on its delicate, wonderful trail.

*   *   *

Maxwell Nacht stepped into the hall beyond the theater and saw the remains of bloody chaos. The long tables on which sat the finest culinary profferings of Culture Quo had been shattered, strawlike foodstuffs scattered everywhere. More bodies lay about, motionless, horribly motionless. The waiters and waitresses all crouched against the far wall, their eyes dulled, their mouths hanging open.

One of them spoke, “He—he didn’t touch us. He came over and … sniffed us, then he left—he drove them on, on, ever onward!”

Max didn’t spare them another glance. He went through the shattered entranceway and arrived at the landing. The wind gusted calmly across his sweat-beaded face. He looked below, down the 666 steps, and saw exactly what he expected to see. He also saw Penny off to one side, halfway down the steps—she looked up to him.

“My God!” she screamed. “The city’s entire art establishment is dead!”

The savage had driven them, like buffalo, Max realized, off the steps—and Max could see the horrible little man, down there among the piled bodies, cutting out tongues, collecting ears and other delectable trophies. And now Penny saw him as well.

“Ohmigod!” Max heard her say. “She—she—she remembers! You! You down there! Oh, my noble one! You!”

The savage glanced up at all the screaming, and watched bemused as the scantily clad woman rushed toward him, down the steps, over the bodies, running straight for him, arms stretched out.

Sool Koobie bleated as Penny leapt on him, her legs spread wide.

Max stared as she writhed over the hapless creature.

“She remembers! Oh God, she remembers! I’m—I’m—I’m … Croona! Queen of the Cavemen! I’ve come home! Home! Oh, take me take me take me take me!”

And Sool did, grabbing her thighs and boldly throwing her on her back, there atop the hundreds of dead politicians, professors, obscure but powerful artists, business leaders, he rogered Penny Foote-Safeword in the fashion of hunky, smelly, grunting primitive men the world over.

Max sighed, actually happy for them both, and wishing them well in whatever squalid hole the savage would no doubt drag Penny into. As for himself, well, enough of the loner jaunt, the gamble of youth—past at last for Maxwell Nacht of the Nacht Lingerie Empire. Time to go home to the millions, the swimming pools, the high society, the tennis lessons, and the maids in the bushes. He’d had his fun pretending to be the artist, he was tired of going hungry, tired of the cockroaches on the kitchen counter, tired of moldy bread and Kraft Dinner, and the endlessly arguing drunks on welfare next door. “I’m going home,” he whispered. “Home, my God.”

At precisely this moment, the 57 Wells tore through the legislature, destroying everything, absolutely everything, including the late-night session where politicians of various stripes had been arguing with no one in particular against any reduction in personal pay, benefits, and the double-dipping loopholes in their fat pension plans. The huge steam engine retired them all, permanently, but the train didn’t stop and indeed was only marginally slowed in its passage through the historical edifice.

Max could only watch as the mechanical demon plunged across the street and crashed into the 666 steps of the Pyramid, flinging bodies and concrete and dead Boy Scouts, and, as the cars behind the engine piled up and burst apart, hundreds of homeless people flew in all directions, thus providing a demographic slice of modern Western society.

Even before the dust cleared, someone flashed by close to Max and scurried down the steps—a figure that seemed able to disappear as it turned sideways, blinking into and out of existence as it descended toward the rubble below.

The minister. Paul Silverthump. Nice trick, that sideways disappearing act. Beauty. The man’s a born politician. Look, not even a hair out of place. Gotta admire the bastard. Hell, he’s the only one left, too. Which means he’ll be taking the reins of power shortly, before the dust down there’s even settled. And who says God isn’t just?

Eight hundred and twenty-three feet overhead in the smoke-filled darkness, a wheeling pigeon outfitted with infrared goggles spotted its target. The bird banked, folded back its wings, and dived.

Few regarded pigeons with much respect, it knew, a lack that was about to be remedied in an act of singular, heroic self-sacrifice. The pigeon picked up even more speed, becoming nothing more than a blur of unstoppable intent, and it knew, in its last moments, that God was on its side, and failure was out of the question.

Max saw Paul Silverthump stop suddenly, entirely visible, and totter slightly on the steps. Something was sticking out of his head, fluttering darkly. Half a pigeon, in fact. The other half was embedded in the man’s head, which even for a politician was likely fatal. And, true enough, Max watched the man topple limply onto the steps, then slowly slide down to join the disaster scene below.

Sorry for ever doubting you, God. Never again, I promise. My God, I’m going to join a monastery! That’ll put the old man in a tizzy! One hell of a tizzy! Hee hee!

*   *   *

Arthur Revell arrived at the hospital, and saw her. The night shift, taking a smoke break outside the doors, dear Faye of the blushing bosom. His shadow swept over her and she looked up.

Arthur expected her to scream. It would have been an entirely natural response. Instead, she took one last, deep drag on her cigarette, flicked the butt to one side, and delicately held out her hand.

“I’m an artist!” Arthur boomed down at her.

“I know!” she said.

“I need—I need—I need—”

“I know! I know what you need, darling Arthur!” She pulled a metal flask from her hip, her pack of smokes from her pocket, and waved them both in the air over her head. “I’m a nurse, remember!”

Arthur straightened for one last roar, a roar of intent, as dark a promise as it had ever been, but this time it was also a roar of sheer joy. “I love life!” he bellowed. “Aaargh!”

*   *   *

On a poorly lit, emptied street, Kit dismounted, hobbled Moopsy, then approached, in great curiosity, the tiny woman riding the motorized submarine steadily down the street’s center. She held her penknife under one arm like a lance, and was muttering something about commercial artists and wildlife painters lucky enough to be born Native.

Kit felt a surge of inevitability deep inside his generally amorphous body, as if a thousand instincts had been triggered at the sight that met his eyes. He slimed forward on an intercept course.

The woman screamed as the submarine’s splayed nose rammed into Kit, who tried a scream of his own and was pleased at its shrill, bestial madness. His tentacles lashed out, gripping the submarine and holding it fast. Lucy Mort stood up and hefted the penknife, her legs spraddled to keep balance on the pitching deck. “Die, bastard from the deep!” she yelled.

Idly, Kit reached up, flipped the puny penknife from her hands, encircled the woman, and boldly lifted her into the air. Her arms thrashed, her hair tossed, her legs kicked, all with equal ineffectivity, and her last shriek was a tinny, hopeless cry. “Help me! Help meeee!!” Kit studied her a moment longer, then ate her in a blinding flash.

He finished the scene by shrilling some more and bashing the submarine into pieces; then he returned to Moopsy, who’d watched the whole thing with tail wagging. Kit mounted up, and they road westward to their date with destiny.

*   *   *

Max sat on a piece of rubble and observed the proceedings. The media had arrived, adding to the chaos of the scene at the foot of the Pyramid’s steps. What was worse, they’d found the homeless—most of whom had survived the crash, which had proved unlucky for them, as the media crews, upon discovering real homeless people, had descended on them with a flurry of heart-bleeding angst.

The predictable end result was being played out below. A woman stood above the still form of Jojum, dead of a microphone shoved down his throat. A cameraman stood opposite her, a mounted spot bathing the reporter and the body in heavenly light. “This is Sandy Grit, MFFB News, coming to you from the central scene of devastation, where an even greater tragedy has occurred. You see this man below me, a poor homeless man, victimized by—I have no choice but to acknowledge it—by a mindless, news-hungry media that views all humanity with a cold, cynical eye. I am ashamed to call myself part of this profession. My God, what have we become? All this just for ratings? For revenue? To shock and entice you with the depravity of modern civilization? Is that all we’re here for? Well, let me tell you all right here and right now, MFFB isn’t like the rest. We’re not … animals, and we’re not going to take it anymore! You’ll see for yourself, my friends, soon enough, and that’s a promise from Sandy Grit, coming to you live from the foot of the Pyramid.”

The light blinked out.

“Move it!” the next reporter snarled, being pushed savagely by the rest of the reporters in the long line. “Mike! Get the camera rolling, dammit!” One of the lounging camera operators on the other side of Jojum’s body straightened and shouldered his camera.

“This is Nick Steel, MKBM News Alive, coming to you from the Pyramid. I’m ashamed, deeply ashamed. Good God, is this what the media has come to? Well, not us at MKBM News, not on your life, nor on his—this poor victim of my senseless, spiteful colleagues—colleagues, how that sad truth galls me—”

Max sighed. It was true, some things he was going to miss in the monastery, but, truth be told, television news wasn’t one of them.

*   *   *

Miraculously flung half a block from the 57 Wells, Joey “Rip” Sanger and John Gully strode quietly down the street. Each had faced death, had seen with wide-open eyes down its black, depthless maw, and each had emerged greatly changed, delivered, as it were, into a new, bright, promising world.

Joey well knew the redcap had survived, somewhere, and the mantle of the Sanger legend had fallen to the boy, and it didn’t matter if he was ready for it or not, because that was the way of such things, to have it thrust upon you, leaving you no choice but to make do with what’s landed in your lap. He’ll do fine. So will Chan—just one more accident report to file, at least it straightened his back even if his head, striking dead-on that lamppost, was pushed right in until his eyes barely look over his collarbone. A survivable wound, for Wild Bill Chan. They’ll do all right, they’ll all do all right.

“Whatcha planning now, Gully?”

The philosopher shrugged. “Leave the world-changing efforts to Art.”

“Art?”

“Arthur Revell. You see him anywhere?”

“Uh, no, I don’t.”

“Exactly, he’s been saved, twice, once by his own revelation, and once by someone else—whoever she might be. He’s slipped back into the cracks, and you’ll know in the years to come, as those cracks start spreading, that he’s quietly doing his work, going about the task of intellectual disobedience, defying the rules of constraint, defying even the conventions of propriety, no matter what the context. As it all crumbles, my friend, you’ll know where it started. Right here, right now.”