The New Weird - Ann VanderMeer [151]
But not surprised.
He was surprised, however, when she found him.
He was in the Room of Charmless Faces, where you could find some of the most abysmal portraits of leading figures ever seen. Anyone else might have been unnerved by the dozens of sightless eyes staring down at them, but the Gutter was oblivious. He stepped lightly across the floorboards ― paused and sniffed. He cocked his head to one side and listened, sure of the fact that his quarry was within range.
She was.
The attack not only came from the shadows ― it was the shadows. The Gutter reeled away from the clawing hands of the Light That Never Shines, unable to see them. The hands, he knew at once, were her Weapons. The fingers of the Light That Never Shines had been fitted with barbs designed to get under the skin, quite literally, of her adversaries. But the Gutter's attire was giving her problems.
The Gutter's smock was thick and greasy with the collective slime of his activities over the years. Unbeknown to him, it had provided him with an impenetrable defence mechanism against the kind of assault he was facing now.
The smock was layered in the bodily juices of a thousand victims whose guts he'd eaten with a messy voracity that had soaked the thing repeatedly in liquid filth. The result was the formation of a reptilian integument that was both slippery and tough as lead. When the Light That Never Shines tore at the smock, her fingers slid harmlessly off its surface without purchase; and her desperation, with each failed attempt, was beginning to show.
The Gutter spun away from her frantic grasps until it dawned on him their effect was minimal. He immediately increased the frequency of his counterattacks, while cautiously avoiding her swipes at his exposed head. Patience, he decided, was the key. He would bleed her dry ― bleed her to death, if necessary.
The Gutter teased her rather than retaliated; but the effect was the same. Within minutes, the Light That Never Shines began to show signs of wilting. The Gutting Knife drew fresh wounds across her arms and legs and upper body, diminishing her strength to a point of weakness. Finally, exhaustion overcame her, and she slumped to the ground with a breathless acceptance of her doom.
The Gutter leaned over her with a mind to savouring her distress. But the look of melancholy on her face (the Gutter had expected terror, rage, contempt or incredulity) unbalanced him.
"Gutter," she panted, her staring eyes like distant moons. "Tell me," she gasped, "what are we, Gutter? What are we and why?"
The Gutter's lips tightened. There was a gleam in his eye that might have been sorrow.
"I eat guts," he said at last. "How the fuck would I know?"
And the Gutting Knife fell with a hideous glimmer and finished her off.
The Gutter entered the basement dragging the wasted frame of the Light That Never Shines behind him. He dumped her corpse amid a heap of broken effigies that had lain there for years.
The churn was in the corner, where he had left it during his encounter with the Psychomatics. He hastened towards it and drew it over to the still-warm body of the Light That Never Shines. He unscrewed the lid, set it aside, and proceeded to slice open her belly and shovel her guts into the churn with cupped hands that were used to this manoeuvre.
The guts of the Information Master were already in there, and the remnants of others from previous weeks. The brine had kept them reasonably fresh or, at least, succulent. The stench that erupted from the churn was making the Gutter drool like a cur.
When he'd emptied the belly of the Light That Never Shines, he squatted over the churn and began to scoop large portions of innards into his eager mouth. He sucked on wet strands of disgorged viscera that slithered between his gums like snakes, and thrust his palms into his face to lick up the remainder. He must have been about halfway through his feast when he ladled one of Whorefrost's testicles into his mouth and swallowed it whole. As far as the Gutter was concerned, it was just another piece of deliciously