[Demonworld #2] The Pig Devils Page 5

  “God’s death,” said Wodan. “Sounds like one big mess.”

  “You’re welcome,” said Korliss, sucking on the empty glass.

  “Listen, Professor Matri, I can’t exactly put Haven’s political situation to rights-”

  “Why would you think that you’d have to?” said Korliss, jerking his head about.

  “- because right now I’m trying to concentrate on finding the person or group that exiled me and the others. Sir, do you have any idea who could be behind it?”

  Korliss settled down in his chair, his features melting with exhaustion. “There’s Sevrik over there,” he said, distractedly.

  Frustrated, Wodan sighed loudly and bounced out of his chair. “I need to talk to him,” he said. Korliss did not move. Wodan walked away.

  “Mister Kyner!” Korliss shouted behind him. Wodan turned. “You missed many of your final exams. Come to my apartment, two weeks from today, for your mythophilosophy final. Your graduation will be pending completion of that test, and that test alone.”

  “One test?” said Wodan.

  “It will be a very difficult test,” Korliss said darkly.

  Wodan cut a half-smile, then continued on.

  In the distance he saw Sevrik Clash. His white Guardian suit was stretched across his wide frame, and many of his medals curved outward around his great belly. His wild red hair looked as if someone had tried to comb it earlier, and his long beard was collected into a single gold ringlet that jingled beneath his chin. He was speaking to a tall man in a simple black suit that was affixed with a single red patch. The man’s stance, musculature, and dark face were greatly imposing, though he seemed to be deferring to Sevrik on some point of conversation. What struck Wodan was his red hair, which was woven in a series of braids that hung down his back and shoulders. It was not unlike Sevrik’s own red hair. A little behind the pair he saw a beautiful older black woman - Sevrik’s wife, he knew - speaking to a young girl in a white Guardian suit. The girl was very short, with wide shoulders and hips, with pale skin like Sevrik’s and short, black hair. Her eyes flashed to Wodan for a moment, then back to Sevrik’s wife.

  Sevrik broke conversation and turned to Wodan, eyes widening. The other man turned to him slowly, and Wodan felt himself shrink under the strength of his gaze. His blue eyes were terrible, made all the more so by his fiery eyebrows and dark face. The two towered over Wodan. Wodan turned back to Sevrik and they both smiled involuntarily.

  “Mister Clash, Sir,” said Wodan, “why did you have Didi arrested?”

  Sevrik smiled, genuinely, though for a moment Wodan thought he looked like a wild animal. The other man did not move. Sevrik said, “Good to see you, too, Wodi. And I’m glad you came right out and asked it. So listen. Didi and I - and Korliss - worked together on something that was, despite its appearance, for the good of Haven. And I’m not worried now because I know that what will come out of Didi’s arrest and trial will also be for the greater good of Haven. Despite its appearance.”

  “Good despite its appearance,” said Wodan, confused. “So it would appear… evil… to a certain type of person…?”

  “Did you have to kill men to get back here?” Sevrik said coldly. The other man tilted his head slightly.

  “I did.”

  “Are you glad to be alive and home?”

  “... Yes.”

  “Well there you go.”

  “So you think that popular morality falls short when it comes to necessity?”

  Sevrik took a deep swig from his drink. Wodan saw the other man turn swiftly, then a young blond lady behind him laughed in surprise. The two chatted amiably. Wodan tilted his head, saw shining blond hair and huge breasts peeking over a green dress.

  He shook his head and turned back to Sevrik. “Sevrik,” he said, forcing his will into his voice. “Those men who took us were in Guardian armor.”

  “Do you think that I had a part in your disappearance?” He leaned forward. “I singled you out in the civilian self-defense class. We’ve spent hours together, and from what I’ve learned and know of you... I know you know me.”

  “I want to say no,” said Wodan. “But I’m… keeping my options open.”

  “Good,” said Sevrik, visibly relieved. “Any man who asks you to trust him is unworthy of trust.” He paused, then said, “How did you know who took you away?”

  “Saul Hargis, one of the exiles, told me.”

  “You never saw these Guardians yourself?”

  “No... but I trust him.”

  “You were in a life-and-death situation with him. I understand that trust can come out of that. But if you’re going to try to find out the truth - and I think you are just the sort of man who would try - then make sure you trust the evidence of your own eyes over another’s word. Always.”

  Strengthened by Sevrik’s candor, Wodan lowered his voice, said, “What if I find out that it was you behind my murder?”

  “Then you have a claim on my life,” said Sevrik. “And as a man, you must come and claim what is yours.”

  After all the dishonesty he had heard that night, the openness of his meeting with Sevrik struck them both as unique, wonderful, and a little ridiculous. The two looked at one another for a moment, then smiled, then laughed. Wodan noted that even though the other red-haired man was speaking to yet another girl who had joined the conversation (brown-ish hair, blue dress, dangerously curving ass), he had tilted his head slightly to the side such that Wodan was sure he was listening to them.

  The black woman and the young girl joined them. Sevrik smiled still more, then said, “Wodi, meet my wife Gunhilde!”

  Wodan stuck his hand out, and the older woman shook it, smiling warmly. He liked her immediately. The wrinkles of her face were like deep veins of experience cut into the good earth.

  “And my daughter Mevrik,” said Sevrik. “She’s a Guardian pilot.” The young girl looked up at Wodan sharply, but her smile seemed genuine. She looked much stouter than he.

  Wodan attempted to say “hello” but he became hung up on the word, straining as if trying to repeat a haiku backwards.

  “Wow,” said Mevrik. “What the hell did you just say?”

  “Uh, just got a little nervous,” said Wodan. “Sorry.”

  Mevrik giggled menacingly as she gripped his hand.

  Gunhilde laughed lightly, said, “Wodan, are your folks here? I’d like to meet them.”

  Wodan paused.

  “Didn’t you tell your parents about this event?” said Gunhilde.

  “No, I didn’t think they’d like something like this.”

  “But all of Haven’s most prestigious people are here! Discussing things like art and politics, the state of things as they see them...”

  “Yeah, it sounded boring to me, too!”

  Gunhilde laughed raucously, happy that he was the sort to pick up on her subtle brand of sarcasm. She reached over, looped an arm around the tall, black-suited man with the red patch, and turned him around and away from the ladies. He furrowed his brow and smiled awkwardly for the first time that night. The gaggle of ladies stood and waited patiently behind the man. The resemblance between him and Gunhilde was obvious. Gunhilde continued, said, “Wodi, what did your parents think about your ordeal?”

  He was taken aback when she mentioned the unmentionable, then he remembered that this silly party existed to commemorate that very nightmare. “I only talked to them a little... on the phone... uh, I was sick after I got back.”

  “Wodi!” shouted Gunhilde.

  “Uh...”

  “Wodan, go and see your damn mother!” She paused, then said, “I’m serious. Wodi, I would give anything to see my mother, anything in the world, just one last time.”

  “You’re right, I’m sorry...”

  “Don’t be sorry to me. Make a date with your mama and apologize! All you kids, just complete idiots.” With that, she elbowed the great man, who jumped as if he were hit by a bullet. “This is my boy, Yarek,” she said. “Big badass
Guardian, thinks he’s too good for his family now.”

  “That’s not true, Mama,” said Yarek.

  “Then what’ve you been up to all night?” said Gunhilde.

  “You want grandkids or not, Mama?”

  Wodan laughed and Yarek flashed him a look. Gunhilde released him and rolled her eyes. Yarek returned to the ladies in waiting.

  Wodan stared at Yarek’s back. He heard the ladies giggling as the man whispered something that played off his mother’s maternal control of him. Wodan was impressed by his poise and his aura of power. He wondered what would happen if someone like him was unleashed upon the wasteland with all of Haven cooperating to back him up.

  Wodan turned and saw that Sevrik had caught him watching his son.

  Wodan was about to respond, but then he felt someone else watching him. His eyes flew just as the man looked away. He was a short, squat man, powerful looking but with a pale, sallow face and mean, puffy eyes of indeterminate color. His blond hair was cut very short, and he wore the fine white suit and medals of a Guardian. A man next to him was speaking to him, but the Guardian’s body was turned away so that the other had to speak to his side. The second man had black-and-gray hair, dark olive skin, and an unreadable face. He wore huge glasses that were so thick they turned his beady eyes into giant black portals. He wore the fine suit of a politician - the finest, in fact, in the whole room - but he wore no blue or red button or any decoration of any sort, save for a golden ring of office on his pinkie finger. Wodan felt a great aura of darkness radiating from the two men, and instantly felt a chill at his spine.

  “Mister Clash,” said Wodan, without taking his eyes from the pair. “Who are those men?”

  Sevrik turned the whole of his bulk, cleared his throat loudly, and Wodan thought he was going to knock him down. “Ah! Here we go,” he said. “The one in the suit is none other than Aegis Vachs, Prime Minister of Haven. The man who pulls the strings and makes the deals.”

  “I didn’t recognize him at all,” said Wodan, amazed by his own ignorance. He vaguely recalled some ads when Vachs had run for Prime Minister over a decade ago. The ads had shown a man with coal black hair and without such absurd glasses.

  “And the wunderkind in the Guardian suit next to him is Shem Udo,” said Sevrik, “Secundus of the Guard of Haven.”

  “Wunderkind?”

  “Yes,” said Sevrik, “because it’s a real wunder that someone like him could rise to the position of Secundus with nary a qualification or any real talent that exists outside of his resume.”

  Wodan laughed as Sevrik glared angrily at the drink in his hand. “So Udo is a Guardian,” said Wodan. “Couldn’t you just get rid of him if he can’t hack it?”

  “He doesn’t work for me.”

  “But I thought you controlled all the Guard-”

  “He’s the Secundus, boy,” said Sevrik. “If all Guardians worked for the Head of Guard, then that man would be the most powerful man in Haven. And you can’t have a situation like that in a democracy, now, can you? The Secundus commands a third of the Guardians and operates outside my control. Third Force Guardians answer to the Prime Minister only. They don’t even have to deal with the Senate like I do.”

  Wodan studied the pair intently. Aegis looked ridiculous, speaking nonstop with his unmoving face and huge, black eyeballs; Shem Udo, standing at his side, nodded over and over in a caricature of listening, but his head moved all around, studying first this suit, then that suit, then another suit...

  A gong was struck. “Dinnertime,” said Sevrik.

  The dinner was bone-wearily boring and Wodan admitted to himself, somewhere between the crème broulet and a “rousing” speech from Politician X, that he actually thought someone would speak about the horrors of the wasteland - its devils, its wicked men, its burning sun - and the fact that Haven was the last good place in a world that would destroy it if it got the chance. No such luck. There were speeches about unity, forward progress, something about tradition thrown in there, something else about community... something about the citizens being the candles placed about the holiday yucca tree...

  Wodan woke when he realized that a group of red-pinned Senators were clapping, stomping, shouting, “SPEECH! SPEECH! SPEECH!” and that Sevrik was among them, clapping and laughing loudly. Many eyes, so many eyes, were on Wodan. His ears burned and threatened to melt. “Tales from the outland!” someone shouted near him, and before Wodan could protest, his feet picked him up and he was literally running toward the podium. He heard his fork ringing on the floor behind him where he had dropped it. He passed by a group of blue-pinned men who looked horrified, their mouths hanging open loosely.

  He slammed into the podium and nearly knocked it over. Though the ballroom seemed wracked by the sound of applause, he was surprised to see just how many among the sea of heads simply stared ahead, waiting for what was to come. Wodan smiled, wondering what to say. He saw the bulbs of cameras flashing. One of the red-pinned Senators stood, swayed a little, said, “Mister Kyner, tell us about your time with Peter Remus!”

  A streak of anger shot through Wodan, for he realized that nobody wanted to hear about the outside world - this was just a political stunt. But he remembered seeing Peter fighting against the ghouls, against demons, and remembered that the man had died doing so. He raised his hands for quiet, leaned into the microphone, and said, “Peter Remus fought to the best of his ability.”

  The cheering erupted anew, louder than before. Blue pins leaned over to whisper to one another. Red pins clapped one another on the back. One of them shouted over the crowd, “Knew Pete would give ’em hell! Knew it!”

  Sensing that all of Wodan’s statements might come out in similarly compact sound-bite size, a reporter jostled a rival cameraman out of his way, shouted, “Mister Kyner! Must be great to be back home. What got you through your terrible ordeal?”

  Without thinking, Wodan leaned into the microphone and said, “I never lost hope, and I… I killed a lot of people.”

  Now most of the cheering skidded to a halt. Only the drunkest continued to clap, then they realized that the moment had passed and fell silent. Wodan stared into the crowd.

  “Listen to me,” said Wodan. “Am I supposed to say that it’s just swell to be back home, where I’m safe and sound? Someone with enough power to send seven citizens into the wasteland would have gotten away with it if I hadn’t fought and killed my way to get back here. That person could be in this very room right now. I aim to find out who did this, and why!”

  In the terrible quiet that followed he heard someone say, “... son of a laborer...”

  A woman laughed hysterically, then a few others joined her - partly to cover the noise of her hysteria, and partly to help one another believe that Wodan’s outburst was all a joke. Just then Aegis Vachs stood from the crowd. Without looking at Wodan, his face as calm as metal, he said loudly, “I think what Mister Kyner is trying to say is that...”

  “I know what I’m trying to say!” Wodan shouted, then realized that his microphone had been turned off. The voice of Vachs carried through some remote microphone concealed on his person.

  “... and we will all pull together,” Vachs said, as the crowd turned to bask in his calm, “in order to bring this investigation to its best possible conclusion...”

  Vachs! thought Wodan. Aegis Vachs is Prime Minister because he’s the kind of man who didn’t sit in a coma when faced by my words. He stood up and re-presented his version of reality. Wodan burned his eyes into the man’s head as a Guardian touched Wodan’s elbow and pushed him gently from the podium. Wodan’s thoughts raced out of control, and he thought, I’ve got my eye on him! I’ll investigate everyone in this room if I have to!

  Wodan jerked his arm from the Guardian and stalked over to the balcony. He and the crowd ignored one another.

  Outside the air was cool and dry. Wodan lightly kicked the glass door shut behind him so as not to hear the sickeningly soothing voice of the Prime Minister. He leaned on
the heavy stone rail and saw the muted lights of the Roundhouse, where the Senate debated, in the distance. The cobblestoned avenue below was empty. Something moved beside him. Wodan turned and saw a boy in a heavy jacket standing next to a bulky leather bag. His skin was pale, face angular - tortured, even - and his hair was brown and unruly. He realized it was the boy from earlier, the one that Korliss had helped in past the guards. Without looking at Wodan, the boy approached him, fumbled in his pockets, and stood next to him. He put a cigarette in his mouth. Still not looking at him, he said, “You got a light?”

  “Sorry,” said Wodan. “I don’t smoke.”

  Before Wodan could finish the boy had already pulled out a lighter and lit the cigarette with bony, shaking hands.

  “I’m Wodan.”

  The boy nodded a little, said, “I’m Luumis. Lamsang. We... we had a class together... at the University.”

  “Ye-e-a-ah,” said Wodan. “With Professor Matri.”

  Luumis snorted cynically. “Uh. I thought it was pretty cool. What you said in there.”

  “Thanks.” Wodan leaned against the rail, easy and relaxed, and watched the boy standing uncomfortably.

  Luumis hit the cigarette for a while, then said, “Those people are fools and they had it coming.”

  “Had what coming?”

  Luumis stopped, then glanced at his bag.

  “Oh. What I said?” said Wodan.

  “Mm,” said Luumis.

  “I wouldn’t worry about them too much,” said Wodan. “Just children playing pretend.”