Richard Kadrey: Devil in the Dollhouse

“Maybe you’ve had enough for tonight?” Carlos says and turns to someone on my right.

“What do you think? Too much or just enough to take advantage of?” comes a female voice.

I turn and Candy is right beside. She kisses me. My head hurts and I’m as dizzy as the Teacup Ride at Disneyland.

Candy does a mock frown.

“Uh-oh. Too much, it looks like. Maybe we need to get you home.”

“Home?” is all I can get out.

Vidocq comes over. Puts an arm around my shoulder.

“You remember home. The lovely Chateau Marmont. It’s just a few steps away. Come. We’ll take you from all this, le merdier. You’ll never have to see it again.”

“Never again.”

They pull me to my feet. Candy, Vidocq, Allegra, and Kasabian. Kasabian has arms and legs. A complete body. He wags his finger in my face.

“You never did know when enough was enough.”

I look at Candy and my heart breaks all over again, just like it did when I lost Alice.

“I’m sorry to say but I know exactly when enough is enough.”

I pull the black blade from the waistband at my back and slice Kasabian’s head off. It rolls across the floor like a sweaty basketball. I whirl and stab Vidocq in the eye. Pull out the blade and shank him in the heart. Then I do the same to Allegra and Carlos.

“Stark. What are you doing?”

They’re screaming and they don’t stop until they’re in pieces on the floor.

I turn and look at Candy. She backs away, her hand held up to me. Bumps into the jukebox and freezes.

“It’s me, baby. What are you doing?”

I’m dizzy and nauseated.

“Doing just what you said. Getting myself away from le merdier.”

I flick out the na’at but I can’t go for her. I lunge and put the blade into the jukebox. Denny sputters and dies. I turn and hack the bar in half. Swing again and slice through the bar stools. Vault the bar and start in on the bottles. I take out a row of booze with each swipe of the na’at until I’m ankle deep in the stuff. Back over the bar, I push a candle over. The booze goes up in one big whoosh.

I’m feeling it now. That old arena feeling, where nothing feels better than something breaking under the na’at or my hands. Candy backs against the far wall. I stab it over her head, pulling out big chunks of plaster. I hack at the windows and floor. I slice apart the pillars by the door and the whole thing collapses. The decorations over the bar are burning and patches of the ceiling glow cherry red. Once it catches we all go down together.

“Right, Henoch?” I yell.

I hack at the beams in the walls. They start to sag. I hack at the floor until it starts to buckle beneath us. The ceiling catches. The air is sucked out of my lungs as all the oxygen in the room cooks off. I look at Candy. I pull out the black blade to throw through a window. She knows a flashover is coming.

“Enough.”

She screams it over the sounds of the flames. I don’t have to throw the knife. The window cracks. The air explodes, enveloping us in flames as thick as molasses. Then stops. The room goes black.

“Enough.”

It’s not Candy’s voice. It’s a man’s.

“What in Lucifer’s name is wrong with you?”

Light slowly comes up. I’m standing in a dimly lit stone room with an old man. Splintered pillars and support columns lean haphazardly against the walls and across the floor.

“You mean my name, don’t you, Grandpa? I’m Lucifer.”

Henoch Breach has wet rheumy eyes set in a sagging face. Scraggly white whiskers that might be the remains of a dead beard. His teeth are black and crooked, like fallen dominoes. He’s dressed in robes that probably looked regal about a thousand years ago. Now they look like a gaudy bath mat in a Tijuana flophouse. He looks around the room.

“Look what you’ve done to my home.”

“What was I supposed to do? No one told me there was a ring inside the house. Only this one wasn’t suffering. Did you really think the ‘it’s all been a dream’ gaff was going to work? Does anyone ever fall for it?”

He laughs and it breaks down into a wet cough. He finds a chair in the wreckage, rights it, and sits down. His voice is surprisingly deep and strong.

“You’d be surprised. Offer mortals or angels what they really want and the first thing they’ll give up is doubt.”

“Not me. Not down here. Doubt is my best friend. Doubt that I’m stuck here. Doubt someone like you is going to off me.”

“I have no interest in offing you any more than you have in offing me.”

“You just murdered a hundred of my troops.”

He shakes his head.

“They’re not your troops. They’re Lucifer’s troops and you’re not him. You might have the title. You might be hiding that you wear his armor under that coat but you’re no more Lucifer than the other one.”

“How do you know, Henoch?”

“I’m not Henoch, you young fool. There is no Henoch. I’m Lucifer. The first Lucifer.”

On any other day I might not believe something like that. Today is different though.

“If you’re the real Lucifer then the guy I know as Lucifer is Henoch?”

He leans his elbows on his knees and shakes his head.

“I told you. There is no one named Henoch. Henoch is the town. I’m Maleephas. And before you ask any stupid questions, yes, I said I was Lucifer. Remember that the Lucifer you know was once Samael. Just as you…”

“Stark.”

“As you, Stark, are now Lucifer.”

I hear something from above. I can’t tell if it’s screams or someone singing “Close To You.”

“What’s happening to my people?”

“I assume they’re being slaughtered just as anyone who comes here is slaughtered.”

“Why? What’s so special about this place that everyone has to die if they come near it?”

Maleephas shrugs.

“You’ll have to ask Samael. He built it. He made the city. He constructed the road. He made the rings you passed through and the Vorosdok that attacked your men. If you’ve been in Hell for any length of time you’ve probably noticed that he’s quite clever and has a good sense of suffering.”

Is this another illusion? Am I talking to myself or does the roadkill have hallucinogenic saliva and they’ve bitten me and are tearing me apart?

“Why would Samael do any of that?”

Maleephas stands and crooks a finger for me to follow him.

We go down a corridor with windows that look out over the front of the Breach. Roadkill and dead soldiers are spread out in all directions.

“Don’t feel badly,” says Maleephas. “This is his doing. Not yours.”

“Why? Why would he build this? Why are you here?”

He opens his arms wide, turning in a circle. He laughs with more strength than I thought he had in him.

“Because this is Hell. The first Hell. The first after the fall. The one we made together and he took and then abandoned.”

Maleephas looks out the window. A few last roadkill wander up the hill. A lot of them are missing heads, arms or legs.

“What stories do they tell about me now? That Henoch Breach is a rebel Hellion’s hold? What do they say about this Hellion?”

“That he’s crazy. That he slaughters travelers along his road. That he fucks snakes and rats and makes monster babies that do his dirty work for him.”

He grips the bars and presses his face to them.

“At least I’m colorful in this version. These myths about the place, they change over time. Very few in Hell recall what really happened in the early days. Remember what I said about offering beings what they really want? Why would they want to remember that this world began with a betrayal as thorough as the one in Heaven?”

“You’re saying that you and Samael were bosom buddies and he turned on you. Why? Why would he care about taking over this shithole?”