Faith of the Divine Inferno - Leslie Thompson (best short novels of all time TXT) 📗

the Conservatoris had things in hand well enough that the cops were back in control. They followed their training as they sorted witnesses from suspects and pretended that the great big, demon spewing hole wasn’t there. They called every available ambulance in the city, though the paramedics wisely refused to get close to the Hell Mouth for any reason. So the police and the Children took the dead and dying to them. Dozens of fire engines arrived soon after so that firefighters could stare at the fiery Hell Mouth in horrified astonishment as they wondered how they were going to deal with it. Every newspaper and TV news channel in north Georgia had caught wind of what was happening, and there were dozens of reporters and camera men standing around and gawking at everything like beached fish.
Shaw and I quietly moved across the cemetery to the trees that made up its borders.
“Where are we?” I wondered aloud as we hurried quietly along.
“We’re in the Old Decatur Cemetery,” Shaw replied sounding weary and numb. “It’s supposed to have graves dating all the way back to the Revolutionary War. It’s beautiful during spring when the trees are in full bloom. I’ll have to bring you here to see it sometime, when there isn’t a gateway to Hell in the middle of it.”
I looked at the headstones as we passed them and found that they had all fallen over in the earthquakes, with the dirt blown out of the pits to reveal empty, rotted coffins. Stunned by the desecration, I saw that every grave had been emptied with no sign of their owners. I briefly flirted with the idea that we should do something about that, but then three fat tentacles rolled out of the Hell Mouth to slap angrily at Morrigan and a small herd of reporters that had gotten too close and I decided that it was a good time to go home.
I had every faith that the Fey would eventually get the Hell Mouth under control, and if they failed then there were all manner of priests, ministers, and bishops within easy reach of the area. This is Atlanta and you can’t swing a dead cat in this town without hitting a religious leader. One of them is bound to know what to do about a giant sinkhole of death. It’s what they’re here for.
In the meantime, I was as tired as I have ever been in my entire life, and I could feel every wound and bruise I had suffered over the last eight days. All I wanted to do was go home and shower, grab a bite to eat, and then spend the night in Shaw’s arms and never let him out of my sight again.


Epilogue

As it would turn out, Ryerson and Charlotte had managed to raise every corpse in the Old Decatur Cemetery as zombies. However, they didn’t seem inclined to eat brains or throttle virgins as they were prone to do in movies and folklore. Instead they wandered stiffly around town and wondered what was going on. Those that had died before the car had been invented screamed in terror at the vehicles as they drove by, and they gathered around light bulbs like giant moths to marvel at the wonder of electricity. When they finally understood that they were dead, those that had been Revolutionary soldiers took to calling dead Confederates traitors and then the two groups brawled in the streets over it. The incidents got gross when they realized they could rip each other’s arms off and use them as weapons.
The Hell Mouth is still open, though it seems that everything that was inclined to escape had done so when it opened. The fact that it had gone quiet didn’t keep the local religious leaders from trying to exorcise it. The hordes of Christian faiths made the attempts first, and when they failed, the Rabbis stepped in. Sure enough, they couldn’t make the Hell Mouth do anything either, and the Muslims gave it their best to no effect. In a last ditch effort they joined forces, even going as far as to allow the Hindus and Pagans to add their efforts, but nothing worked. Now they take turns praying over it to make sure anything lurking down there stayed put.
As for the demons that did get out, they have taken up residence wherever they could. Many have grabbed human hosts, or are squatting in basements and attics to plot their mischief. Some have turned out to be quite repentant of the crimes that put them in Hell in the first place and are doing volunteer work helping the homeless. It isn’t going very well. The rest have developed an affinity for petty street crime and are rapidly taking over all the gangs that plague Atlanta.
Not surprisingly, church attendance and conversion is higher than America has ever seen. The appearance of creatures spoken of only in religious books tends to bolster the faith a great deal, and everyone is keen to see what Heaven is like. Despite demonic efforts otherwise, all but the worst of gang members have quit the life and are working hard on staying on the straight and narrow and all other crime is dwindling down to nothing. There’s nothing like seeing Hell to make you reconsider your priorities.
The faeries have decided to remain in the open, rather than return to their hidden Mounds. Finvarra even appeared on TV to announce that his people were real, and that they were here to stay. He answered a few questions, yelled at a child until she cried for asking if he knew Tinkerbelle, managed a few rude comments about Peter Pan, and kissed the mayor’s wife full on her mouth. No one knew what to do about that, so they all murmured, “Bless your heart” and waited for him to go away. There are recent reports that gun related pixie fatalities have already reached catastrophic proportions, but no one knows if that is a good thing or not. All I can say is that pixies spew glitter everywhere when you shoot them.
For a while the Atlanta police department was at a loss over what to do when they encountered brawling zombies, a demon dressed like a bad rapper, or a faerie who thought no meant yes. Most of the trouble came from wondering how many of the creatures could kill them with a look, or whether or not there seemed to be a cultural misunderstanding somewhere and they were about to get sued out of their jobs. They quickly got over that and started treating the non-humans the same as any belligerent human. They tazered suspects when necessary and carted them off to jail. They did start shooting big holes into the demons without warning though. They learned that the creatures got high from being zapped into twitchy goo and would gleefully maul a cop to get their fix.
Somehow the Children of Orpheus have managed to put themselves exactly where they wanted. After the dust settled and people could poke their heads out of their houses again, the Governor awarded the Great Bard, several ranking members, and most of the Conservatoris medals for their ‘heroic efforts’. Then Howard managed to convince local leaders that he had a special relationship with the supernatural and would be useful in the future. They promptly installed him as a liaison between humans and everything else and handed over the funding to start a whole government department for his purpose. He calls me about once a week to talk me into joining the Children and to listen to me tell him to fuck off. I really do not like him.
The Conservatoris are still with the Children, though they have assumed the responsibility of shadowing me around after I maced the last Child I caught following me into blindness. I ignore them for the most part, but I do enjoy having them arrested on drug charges when I’m bored. They spend their free time hanging out with the Archbishop and giving seminars on the differences between the Faerie and demons while warning folk that the Fey got violent if you mistook them for the latter.
Turns out that Mabel had shot Shaw in the head during the fight at Charlotte’s apartment. He’d gone down and would have died if Bridgett hadn’t intervened. She magically grabbed him from wherever she had been and she had healed him of his injury. So when Alejandro told me that he had lost him, he had meant exactly that. Shaw had disappeared, and Alejandro didn’t know where he had gone or why.
After refusing the Children’s offer to join their ranks, Shaw left the police force to open his own security agency, and business was good. Since he was the closest thing that Atlanta had to a supernatural expert, he was on permanent retainer with various agencies. He received occasional calls when someone’s pretty daughter disappeared in the night, or a mother found an ugly baby sleeping in her child’s crib. Between strange kidnappings and infrequent curses, he was often in the homes of the wealthy, giving them tips on how to keep leprechauns out. Apparently the buggers have decided that credit cards will get them all the gold they want and will steal them the second a human back is turned. His ex-wife Edith managed to remain calm enough to let Shaw explain why the kids had been left on the porch for hours that fateful night. Whether for her children’s sake, or because Shaw offered her a bigger chunk of child support, she decided to let their custody agreement stand without a fight.
The Faith of the Divine Inferno is wholly extinct now. Ryerson and all five of his inner circle were found dead near the altar with their necks broken. They sat at the morgue for several months before it was decided that no one was coming forward to claim the bodies. Now all six reside in pauper’s graves at an undisclosed cemetery. The few who managed to survive the Hell Mouth and escaped demonic possession were tried for conspiracy, terroristic threats, murder, accessory, and pretty much anything else the cops could come up with. Most of them went to prison for a very long time, but there were a few who got to go home and rebuild their lives.
As for me, things aren’t as bad as they could be, but they certainly aren’t as good as they had been. While I’m not locked in a secret laboratory and suffering through cruel experiments, I’m not enjoying the quiet life I once enjoyed. As it would turn out, an ambitious investigative reporter had been contracted by a popular national news program to infiltrate The Faith of the Divine Inferno and film a shocking expose about them. The reporter had managed to sneak a video camera into several worship services, as well as the sacrament designed to give my body to a powerful demon. The network took one look at his footage and gave him a two hour show to display fantastic images that included a clear shot of my mutilated body and my subsequent survival. The show caused a media frenzy that had me and my neighbors trapped in our homes as reporters camped out in the parking lot and waited for a glimpse of me or a word from them.
A quick call from my lawyer’s office convinced them that it was unconstitutional for anyone to harass or discriminate against me