Lucifer's Lottery - Edward Lee [112]
“Jeez, I didn’t figure that would happen,” Krilid said. “Pretty impressive . . .”
The Demonculus’s head turned down to Krilid. “You know something? Destroying stuff’s a lot of fun!”
“As long as it’s evil stuff, Gerold,” the Troll accentuated. “And there’s plenty of that here.”
The creature’s inexplicable face suddenly seemed morose. “But-but—” It looked at its horrific hands, then down the line of its corrupt physical body. “But-but . . . Shit, Krilid. I’m a monster.”
“You’re not a monster, Gerold. You’re the most powerful weapon ever made! And if you hadn’t come here, what would you be then?”
Nightmarish, fathomless eyes blinked. “I’d be dead. I’d be nothing.”
“Yeah!” Krilid yelled. “So stop feeling sorry for yourself just because you . . . look different. And you’re forgetting the best part!”
A titan pause. “What’s that?”
Krilid winced. “You can walk, moron! What you wanted more than anything you just got—in spades!”
“I can . . . walk . . .” The voice, however inhuman, seemed suspicious. Very slowly, one leg lifted and—
THUD!
—stepped forward. Then the other—
THUD!
The District tremored like a seismic shift.
“See?” Krilid said from the Demonculus’s hand. “It might take a little getting used to but, hell, what’s the big deal?”
The Demonculus took three more steps in succession. The third step begat a giant crack in the ground. “I can walk!” Gerold celebrated.
Krilid pointed a finger. “Yeah, and look what you get to walk with. The biggest legs to ever exist.”
Suddenly, the Demonculus began to hitch. Its abyssal mouth hung open, and the two ragged back holes that were its nose actually sniffled. Tears like raw crude oil squeezed from the impossible eyes.
“Aw, come on, Gerold,” Krilid implored. “Demonculuses don’t cry.”
“I can’t help it,” the thing sobbed. “I’m happy. And I owe it all to you. Thank you!”
“Don’t thank me, thank your Celestial Destiny—”
“What?”
“Never mind,” Krilid decided. His eyes glittered with enthusiasm as sirens and alarms began to blare from every District, Prefecture, and Municipal Zone for miles. “This is gonna be really cool, Gerold. We’re gonna kick ass and not take names. We’re gonna go on an anti-Luciferic tear-ass like Hell has never seen!”
“Right on!” The ground rumbled when Gerold yelled.
“We’re gonna destroy every Pulping Station, Power Plant, Tortuary, Prison, Police Station, every Grand Duke palace and every Sorcerial College in Hell! We’re gonna be Satan’s worst nightmare and nothing can stop us!”
“All right!”
“And who knows? One day we might even stumble upon Manse Lucifer itself—”
“And tear the shit out of it!”
“You got that right, my friend! So let’s do it!”
Staring, the Demonculus paused, as if bracing itself for a prospect too good to be true. Then it took a step—
THUD!
And another step—
THUD!
And then another and another and another, each stride consuming the length of half a city block, and that’s when Gerold started walking, and he would walk and walk and walk, for time immemorial, each step destroying something vile, each thud of its monstrous feet laying rents in Satan’s domain, each stride celebrating the gift that Gerold had taken for granted but had received yet again.
Indeed, Gerold—the first Demonculus of Hell—could walk, and from that point on, he would never stop—
THUD!
—never stop—
THUD!
He would never stop walking.
(IV)
The suitcases thunked as he clumsily got them down the stairs. For some reason he was not the least bit at odds with the prospect of walking out of an abandoned house with two suitcases full of cash. He bumped the front door open with his rump, then wheeled the suitcases out into the teaming night. Moonlight coolly painted his face; crickets throbbed dense as electronic music. Hudson felt enlivened even after this ultimate sin: his complete betrayal of God on High.