And the Devil Will Drag You Under Read online

  And there he was-sleeping there on a collection of netting, dead to the world. Mac was happy to see it. This was the first indication he had that demons slept. The surgery this one had undergone to make him more human was very good indeed, but he still walked and even slept with his legs at the odd angle more appropriate to his own cloven-hoofed race.

  Now to the task. A jewel like Mogart's would glow in the eerie darkness even if a tiny portion of it was exposed to air, Mac felt sure of that. The one he had seen had appeared to have a life of its own. Mac looked around, concerned now. His plan had seemed very simple, but somehow he'd known it wouldn't be. Seeing no other artifacts, he felt certain the jewel had to be in the skin bag with the herbs and sharp stones that was the demon's medical kit. Surely so essential a thing as the jewel would not be left behind in some buried spot. It was his badge of authority with these savages and, most important, his only way out of un­foreseen tight situations. It just had to be here.

  The demon slept soundly. Mac crept close to him, club at the ready, reaching the skin bag that was a mere hand's span from the witch doctor's face. He picked it up, stepped back a bit, and opened the bag in anticipation.

  There was no glowing gem.

  He dumped the contents of the bag onto the ground and felt inside again for hidden compartments. There were none. The jewel wasn't in the bag; it wasn't around anyplace he could see, and since the demon was nude, as they all were, it wasn't in his clothing, either. The witch doctor still wore his bone jewelry, but that was hardly a likely hiding place. None of the bones was large enough to contain or conceal the gem.

  There was nothing else Mac could do. If he couldn't find the gem, then the demon would have to tell him where it was. He judged the distance, angle, and veloc­ity required, and hoped he wasn't making a big mis­take. Raising the club, he brought it down hard on the demon's skull.

  The witch doctor started as if shocked; his eyes and mouth flew open. For a fleeting moment Mac feared that he would cry out an alarm, but then the eyes rolled upward, closed again, and he sagged visibly.

  So demons can also be knocked cold. That's handy to know, too, Mac Walters thought.

  Being as careful as he could, he hoisted the body, which was surprisingly light, over his back and good shoulder and turned. Oona just stood there, mouth open, knowing what she was seeing but totally unable to comprehend any of it.

  Mac didn't care. His burden still made his bad shoulder hurt like hell, and he wanted out of there as quickly as possible.

  The demon groaned and opened his eyes. Things were terribly blurry, and his head pounded. Finally he made out two dim shapes and tried to focus on them. He was in a cave, he knew that. He tried to move his arms and legs and found them bound with strong vines.

  Balthazar smiled suddenly. Bound and spirited away! What fun! A man's face came close to his and he could make out the features. This is Guml's slave, Dend, he thought, wondering just what was going on here.

  "Where stone that bums?" Dend demanded.

  It took Balthazar a second to comprehend. This fellow meant the amplifier! He chuckled “Why Dend want stone that burns?" he asked, both curious and amused. "No good but to spirit priests. Kill Dend."

  Now it was the other man's turn to laugh. "No kill Dend. Dend no want." Mac Walters hesitated now, trying to decide whether to blow the whole bit. Oh, hell, he thought sourly, what harm could it do? At least this creature will know he isn't dealing with an ignorant savage. That will save time.

  "Mogart want stone that burns," he told the demon. Balthazar gasped. "Mogart!" His mind was clearing quickly now. "Then Dend not Dend."

  Walters shook his head. "Dend not Dend," he confirmed.

  The demon was still digesting that fact when he saw there was a third person in the cave-an old woman, it looked like. She walked forward now, and he saw that in her hand she held a burning ember, its flame extinguished but still glowing red in the almost total darkness of the cave.

  "Baal give stone that burns Dend!" she ordered in a tone that surprised both of them. Mac hadn't even known that she was going to get involved, and he looked wonderingly at her wrinkled and scarred face by the light of the ember. There was sheer hatred in her eyes and expression, that was for sure.

  Oona might not know what the hell was going on, but she definitely had reasons to hate this demonic witch doctor.

  Balthazar was equally surprised. "Oona!" he exclaimed.

  Now it was Mac Walters' turn to be confused. These two obviously knew each other, and pretty well.

  Without hesitation, she touched the ember to Bal­thazar's skin just below the hip. It sizzled and made a sickening stench; even Walters was stunned by her unhesitating brutality.

  The demon's reaction, however, was not at all ex­pected. Instead of yelling and screaming in pain, he almost seemed to lean into the glowing wooden wand, and his face took on a look of rapturous delight.

  "No, Oona!" Mac shouted, and grabbed the burning ember from her hand. "Baal like hurt!" It was true. Here was one very sick mind.

  She hesitated a moment, looked at her victim, and saw that this was so. She threw up her hands in dis­gust. Plainly she was feeling the same helplessness Mac himself felt.

  How the hell do you torture a secret out of a mas­ochist like this?

  The situation was worse than that, really. Holding the ember and shaking it a bit to keep it glowing, he held it near where Oona had thrust it into the demon's side.

  The charred flesh was already starting to heal.

  How long had Mogart said he'd been on Earth? Since the beginnings, Mac thought glumly. They couldn't be killed, and their injuries healed quickly. The scars on Balthazar were obviously a touch of au­thenticity added by the surgeons, rather than true ones.

  Not only could the son of a bitch be tortured indefinitely, but he'd love every minute of it.

  Mac understood Oona's frustration. Whatever this creature had done to make her hate him so, there was obviously no way to get even. No way at all. That jewel seemed to be as unattainable as ever.

  Even the demon sensed the frustration, and started to chuckle in the dark.

  Oona was so mad she stalked out of the cave, leav­ing the two alone. Balthazar sensed this, looked up, and said, "Dend put hand on Baal, talk more good."

  Walters considered it. A trick, perhaps? Some way for the demon to get at him? He sighed. Might as well, he decided, and put his hand on Balthazar's shoulder.

  There was no feeling, no sensation out of the ordi­nary, and after a few seconds Mac took his hand away, confused.

  "That's much better," said Balthazar in flawless, middle-American English. "The language of these peo­ple can be so cumbersome sometimes."

  Walters' jaw dropped. He was speechless for a moment.

  Balthazar sensed his wonderment. "Oh, come, come. You can talk to me as well. I merely had to match your soul to the known patterns of Mogart's world. I spent some time there a few thousand years ago, but it got too cultured and structured for me. I still take a look at it from time to time, though. There's some interest­ing devil worship going on there, and a bunch of talented amateurs manage to break through occasionally and summon me."

  "Then you really are demons," Walters breathed.

  Balthazar shrugged. "Magic is any phenomenon that is misunderstood. When sufficient mental force and desire are properly focused into, say, a pentagram, even by using ridiculous mumbo jumbo which helps concentration, these factors can call one or another of us who are, shall we say, simpatico with the basic spirits of the callers. There are several of them in your world, although the number has fallen off in recent years."

  "I need your jewel," Walters told the creature flatly. "My world is about to be destroyed by a collision with an asteroid, and only Mogart with enough power in his hands can stop it."

  The demon shrugged again. "Too bad. I sympathize. But I'm not much on doing something for nothing, and there's nothing you can offer me to make me part with the only means I have
of contacting, or being reached by, other continuums. This life is all well and good, but it gets to be a bore sometimes. No, I'm afraid you'll do without my jewel, and I am prepared to wait here in this cave until you die of old age if need be. Why not just forget this silliness and throw in with me? I've had some success establishing devil worship here-with me as the devil, of course. You could be a high priest for this tribe. Put your soul under my command and you won't have a bad life here."

  Mac Walters snorted. "I don't think I'd want to preside over any religion you were at the heart of, even if I weren't already under Mogart."

  Balthazar smiled. "But as you said yourself, Mogart is on a world that is swiftly coming to an end. He'll never go back; he'll kill himself first, the only way we can die. I need only outwait him-and you."

  "Why, you-I" Walters snarled in fury, and put his hands around the other's throat and squeezed.

  "Tighter! Tighter! Oh, please!" the demon choked, but he wasn't kidding. He really did enjoy this sort of thing.

  Walters let go. "The woman-Oona. Tell me, why does she hate you?" he asked.

  Balthazar coughed a little and caught his breath. "I have certain needs that others must fulfill," the demon told him. "With the jewel I have a certain power over others. Oona was one of the first I chose when I ar­rived here. .She was pretty then, very desirable. She did as I commanded-she had no choice. The rites are, ah, rather strenuous. Within a year she was used up, the crone you see now."

  Mac Walters heard the demon, and the hairs on his scalp tingled slightly. He felt sick. What sort of hide­ous, hellish rites did this demon command?

  "How long ago?" he asked Balthazar. "How old is she?"

  The demon shrugged. "I told you I haven't been with this tribe very long. A year, I suppose. She must be around twenty, I'd guess."

  Mac Walters hit the demon hard on the jaw, not once but several times. The demon loved it, of course; but doing it made Mac feel a little better. Finally his shoulder, which had been agonizing for hours, just couldn't take it any more. In terrible pain, he whirled in disgust and walked out to the mouth of the cave, to where Oona was.

  She looked up at him, seeing his obvious discom­fort. "Down on belly!" she commanded. "Oona rub."

  He shook his head from side to side, barely noting that, away from the demon, he was still in the other language frame. "No. Hurt be going." Still, he sank down with a sigh and leaned against the rock outcrop that protected them from view by any canyon-level searchers. He looked up at the sky. Soon it would be dawn of the fifth day.

  He looked over at the woman. She looked old, ter­ribly old and scarred and haunted, yet Balthazar had said she'd been a young beauty only a year before. No wonder she hated him!

  "No can hurt Baal," she concluded, saying the ob­vious. "Leave Baal in cave. Dend-Oona go far, make Dend-Oona clan." She turned and looked hauntingly at the cave. "Baal hurt Oona, take young, pretty time, but Oona still make lots babies."

  He sighed. So that was it. Wasted, ruined by the demon, she had returned ugly and ancient-looking, no longer desired by any of the men. Guml had had to take her back in since she was one of his wives, but nobody would give her a second look with so many unspoiled women about.

  This explained a lot. She must have sensed in Mac something new, different from the other men. She knew he'd try to escape, and if be did, then it provided her with the only escape she had as well.

  He felt enormous pity for her, but there was literally nothing he could do. The only thing even remotely possible was to get that jewel from Balthazar. Doing so would not help Oona, but it would help prevent future Oonas. The demon would still be both sick and immortal, but that would not translate into power if the jewel were removed. And it would keep him out of other planes where sadomasochistic devil worship­pers might summon him to spread his sickness.

  But how the hell did you torture a secret out of a sadomasochist? That would be the only way-to threaten him with something he just couldn't stand.

  Mac's mind raced. Let's see. If somebody is a sado­masochist, then you are incredibly kind to them, right? They can't stand that. He sighed. How could you do that here? Balthazar was a prisoner, which suited him. Left to his own devices, he could inflict pain on himself, and if you were kind enough to remove his re­straints it'd be even worse. He might even have some residual power, jewel or no.

  And any scheme of that type would take time, lots of time. Time Mac didn't have; time that was running out.

  He heard Oona fooling with something and looked over at her. She had that pouch she'd filled, and it was stuffed from the looks of it. From it she took some crushed narcotic weed and a clay pipe-the pipe he'd used the night before. She was preparing it to ease his pain.

  Suddenly an idea came to him. "Oona!" he whis­pered excitedly, reaching over and taking the pouch. It was full of the stuff. Lots of it. For the first time in a long while, Mac Walters smiled. Here was his weapon-this and the demon's ignorance of his true circumstance.

  "No hurt when smoke," Oona said soothingly.

  His smile became a grin which she had mistaken for pain. The shoulder was bad, but it was forgotten now. He nodded to her. "No hurt when smoke!" he agreed, and pointed to the cave.

  She understood almost immediately, and a faint grin appeared on her ravished face as well. "Ooooh . . ." she breathed.

  Mac stood up with her help and went back into the cave. False dawn was upon them, and there was some light now. The demon had fallen asleep and had to be shaken to wake up. Mac Walters also checked the vine bindings to make sure they were secure.

  The demon awoke and looked around, then yawned. "More fun and games?" he asked in English. Oona, preparing the leaves, seemed a little confused by the strange sounds, but ignored them.

  "My turn," Walters replied. "Ever smoke the drug they use for pain around here?"

  The demon sniffed. "Noxious stuff. Wouldn't touch it."

  "I thought as much," Walters said, partly to himself. "Well, you see Oona over there? She's got a lot of it, and we're going to make a little fire in here and use some brush to block the cave entrance. You'll breathe it and feel no pain at all."

  The demon laughed menacingly. "Very clever, but I am of strong mind. I can stand it."

  Mac tried to match the menacingly confident tones of Balthazar. "Oh, not just now. We have lots of it-a whole grove of it that I spotted on my way in here. It's an awfully common weed, it seems." An extra tone that sounded somewhat sadistic itself crept into his voice. "How long do you think Oona can live?"

  The demon looked worried. "If nothing happened, twenty, thirty, maybe more years. Why?" Realization was creeping into his voice, but he dared not think it.

  "Not much time for an immortal," Walters shot back. "Twenty, thirty, forty years of being mildly drugged, feeling wonderfully high, unable to feel any pain. But that won't be all. I think the stuff's addic­tive. She'll only have to drug you for a few weeks at most, I think, and you'll be hooked. You'll have to have it. No pain, nothing but pleasant sensations, always."

  The demon began sweating. He seemed nervous and scared, but he tried to think himself out of his pre­dicament. "It's horrible! But you're right, Walters. Forty years-by the Gods of Teikelal! Horrible! But I can stand it! My people can't become addicted to your stuff!"

  And then Mac Walters laughed. "Good try, Baltha­zar, but your people are the prototypes for all the worlds you created-in your own image, more or less. You forget that Mogart is an alcoholic!"

  Oona couldn't understand what was being said, but she couldn't mistake the witch doctor's expression, his mixture of hatred and pure fear, the kind of expression heretofore found only on his victims. She held up a bowl of crushed leaves and took a lighted bit of tinder she'd just obtained by patient striking of flint. She touched it to the leaves and blew on it until they caught, slowly, a little reddish glowing patch in the middle of the bowl giving off a thin wispy smoke. With sheer enjoyment she thrust it under the demon's nose. He twisted and tur
ned, but Mac's powerful grip held him now.

  At the first whiff he recoiled; his voice became a strangled whisper, a whimper almost. "Take it away!" he pleaded. "Take it away! I'll do it! The jewel is yours!"

  Walters smiled and gestured to Oona to remove the bowl.

  "Five seconds," the man from another world toldhim. "You have five seconds to tell me where the jewel is. Otherwise I walk out of here and leave the two of you alone for the day!"

  Balthazar was only too anxious. "There's a pouch-a skin flap, a cavity between my genitals and my ass! It's in there!"

  So that was it! Walters spread the demon on the floor and got a good wrestling position on him despite his bonds. He reached down, felt around, and found the pouch. It took a little doing to haul the jewel out, but he managed it.

  The jewel looked just like Mogart's.

  Mac released the demon.,"One thing I don't understand," he said to him. "If you had it all the time, why didn't you use it?"

  "I-I would have," the demon admitted, "but that would have taken some twisting with these bonds, and I didn't see the need. There would be time, later, when I would be alone and would not have to betray the location to you."

  Oona looked pleased but confused. Mac turned to face her. "Oona, I wish I could help you, at least tell you what I have to do now-but there's no way."

  She couldn't understand a word of what he was say­ing, but something in his tone and expression got through.

  "Dend not Dend," he told her. "Dend come back, no remember Oona."

  She seemed to understand, although there was a tear or two in her eyes. In her own terms, he was a spirit in Dend's body, an enemy spirit to that of the witch doctor; and now he had won, now he had to go.

  He smiled compassionately and kissed her lightly on the forehead, then turned to go.

  "Hey! Mogart man! Untie me! I have kept my end of the bargain!" the demon shouted anxiously. "You can't leave me here with her!"

  Mac Walters turned, and a strange look appeared on his primitive face.

  "No break law," he responded in the language of these people. "No law for Dend break."