A Thousand Fiendish Angels: Stories Inspired By Dante's Inferno (3 page)

"Grandfather always said this was for you, and that I wasn't to open it," Simon said, as he took a manila envelope of heavy cream from the safe and handed it to his brother. It had clearly been opened. Gest arched one eyebrow as Simon met his look unapologetically. "I didn't seriously believe you would come back for it."
 

Pulling the papers out of the envelope, Gest frowned as he studied the many pages, a combination of old handwritten diary entries scrawled with notes, and modern GPS printouts. He looked up with a question in his eyes.
 

"It's a map, or a series of them," Simon said, smiling with perverse pleasure at his brother's ignorance. "Grandfather told me about it after his first heart attack and he pleaded with me to follow the directions, to take the path he had always wanted to follow. It has taken most of his lifetime to work out the symbols within the book, to understand where it leads. But he was on so much morphine by then that I dismissed his ranting. That must have been when he sent the letter to you."

Simon remembered how his grandfather had implored him to take the book to the location it revealed, for the final piece to complete the Great Work must lie there, a power beyond imagining. Perhaps it could also be a way to replenish their fortunes, Simon thought, for the book also contained lists of ancient jewels, hidden for many years. He hadn't taken the words seriously at first, but after he had taken the book for himself, he had begun to feel an increasing need to go on the journey it demanded. He felt a pull, a rising desire to discern what the book revealed and a pulse of latent power that begged to be unleashed. Perhaps the answer lay in these maps.
 

Gest spread the pages out on a worktop, scanning them quickly. "This all looks authentic, Si, and I know you're as aware as I am of the state of the bank accounts. We need whatever this points to."

"Even if it takes everything we have left?" Simon replied, looking around at his beloved lab, wondering if the risk was worth it.
 

Gest grinned, and his eyes sparkled with a lust for adventure.
 

"Every cent," he said. "For we'll get it back a thousand-fold. Remember his stories, the ones he told us as boys. Diamonds and precious stones without name, just waiting for us to pull them from the ice. And now we have the map to get us there."
 

Gest embraced his brother, spinning him around in the lab. Simon reluctantly gave into his merriment, smiling for the first time since his grandfather's death and finally understanding why the map had been left to his headstrong, reckless twin.
 

***

Two months later, Simon shook his head as he remembered that moment in the lab, the beginning of this trip to the frozen wastelands of the far north. The maps had indicated a little-known stratum of caves within the Arctic Circle but their ship could carry them no further and now they had to take dog sleds for the final section of the journey inland. The trip had finished the last of the bank loans that Gest had secured against the mansion and lab equipment and Simon cursed his own weakness at letting his brother mortgage his life's work. His jaw ached from days clenching it, as each thunk of ice crunching on the side of the hull reminded him of the miles of frozen water between them and civilization. For now there was no going back.
 

The specialist team Gest had hired were finishing the last checks of the equipment they needed to carry inland, and Simon watched the handlers bring the sled dog teams out from the ship. The Siberian Huskies and Alaskan Malamutes leapt about and yelped, shaking their shaggy fur, tongues hanging out as their hot breath frosted the air. To Simon, they were reminiscent of wolves, with sharp teeth and thick fur, animals suited to this cruel environment and ready to do battle with Nature.
 

"Cry havoc," he whispered, "and let slip the dogs of war."
 

Simon zipped up his fur-lined coat, his hand skimming the top pocket where his name had been sewn in violet letters to help the crew tell the identical twins apart. As if he could be mistaken for his brother, Simon thought, as he watched Gest arguing with the expedition leader, making sure the man was following his instructions to the letter.
 

Since his brother's attention was elsewhere, Simon bent to check the position of the book within his pack. He had wrapped it in protective and waterproof layers, but he still felt a need to reaffirm its safety. As he put his hand on it, he thought he could feel a curious warmth emanating from inside and he sensed a tendril of desire to place the book where it belonged. He looked up to see gusts of wind on the ice, swirling into figures like mutated angels, reaching for the book with ancient hands. He blinked and they became eddies of chill air, but Simon tightened the straps on his pack, pulling it closer to his body, as the team readied to move out.
 

Later that day, the expedition leader called a halt as he and Gest checked their coordinates with the old paper map against the modern GPS. Simon peered around, squinting at the sun through his goggles, taking in their surroundings with a dawning sense of recognition. They had stopped within a shallow valley and the silhouette of the icy hills around them matched one of the drawings in the book, old lines etched in a shaky hand that his grandfather had never been able to interpret.
 

With rising excitement, Simon stepped off his sled. He snapped on cross-country skis and headed towards the edge of the valley, using his poles to spur himself onward. The barking and howling of the dogs followed him and he heard Gest shout in alarm, but he wanted to be the first to confirm whether this was indeed the place in the drawing.
 

Beneath a strange formation of ice cliffs, reminiscent of a demon's head, a precipice fell into a vast pit. A dank and foul-smelling waterfall poured dark-tinted water downwards, anathema to the clear crystal they had found elsewhere. The volcanic crevasse was edged with stones the color of iron encrusted with mold, and steam poured from the hole. A hot stench, like decaying flesh, filled the air, yet still Simon felt a dark pull to the murky depths below as he gazed into the tumbling waters.
 

Gest arrived on his skis, panting a little with the exertion of catching his brother, his face clouded with annoyance at being left behind.
 

"The map says that the caves are accessible from the abyss," Gest said, as if he had found the location. "So we're going down there. We're close, I can feel it."
 

Signaling back to the team, he directed them to set up the abseiling gear and soon the crew were busy hammering in equipment. Gest was impatient and, as soon as he could, descended first with his head-torch on, ignoring the team leader's request for initial safety checks. As he disappeared beneath the lip of the waterfall, Simon hurried his own preparation, soon following Gest over the edge. He glanced down, watching as his brother ducked into a cavern under an overhang, unhooking his ropes in order to move more freely. Simon felt a pulse of excitement at finding the cave, a throbbing that seemed to vibrate through his rucksack from the book. Could this really be the place?
 

As he reached the entrance he heard a low moan from within, a deep sound of horror that was scarcely human. He heard his brother retching and coughing, the sound echoing from the rough-hewn entrance. Simon unhooked his harness and hurried down the rocky corridor into the cave within, blue light filtering down as the walls turned to ice again away from the heat of the waterfall. As his head lamp suddenly flickered and reflected off the surface, Simon caught a glimpse of his own face as if in a mirror, startling him with the resemblance to his twin. He stepped onwards to find Gest bent double as he threw up the remains of his meager breakfast, the smell of vomit permeating the chill of the cave. Gest pointed wordlessly and Simon turned, his head torch illuminating what his brother had seen.
 

A cylindrical block of ice bisected the cavern and as Simon looked closer, he realized there were bodies inside, parts of their frozen limbs protruding in bulges. But this was no peaceful grave, for their mouths were open in horror and their bodies had been split open, hacked apart and murderously slaughtered. Simon walked around the block, breathing deeply, swallowing down the bile that filled his own throat. On the far side, one man was split from chin to groin, his frozen entrails dragged from his body, his heart flopped from his chest, with mutilated intestines and bowels frozen into a tableau of agony. Another figure was face down in the ice, his head crushed as if chewed by the maw of a hell fiend, his back torn open by claws that rent his spine, exposing the bones through ragged flesh flayed from his body. Who or what had done this? Simon stared in horror, but part of him felt the echoes of violence as an edge of arousal.
 

"What do you think happened to them?" Gest asked, finally standing straight. He took a swig of water to rinse his mouth and then spat it out onto the floor of the cave, where it swiftly froze.
 

Simon examined another of the figures, his head cruelly twisted around to face the back of his body, his eyes frozen open and his mouth contorted. The dead man's clothes could be seen more clearly, the style and fabric from an earlier generation.
 

"Whatever it was," Simon replied, "it happened a long time ago."
 

"Do you think Grandfather knew about this?" Gest asked.

Simon heard a tinge of judgment, a hint of blame in his brother's horrified voice, but he only felt a growing kinship with his grandfather's quest and a rising discernment of what must come. He swung off his pack, removing the book of multi-hued leather. It seemed to pulse in his hands as he flicked through the pages for the handwritten notes he had once glimpsed and now perhaps began to understand.
 

On one page was a rough map of the north, with the label Hyperborea written in blood and twin lightning bolts scrawled at the bottom. In the middle of the land mass was a demon, a creature of primal myth, with six wings beating against the cold north wind. His grandfather had never been able to explain what it meant but now Simon felt a heat rise from the book, a throb of latent power. Light seemed to emanate from it and Simon's vision flashed. Suddenly he saw the cave floor awash with blood and hacked apart bodies as the men died at the hands of a possessed madman who fled alone with the book.
 

Simon was transfixed at the vision but Gest seemed not to notice his brother's inattention, shining his torch away from the corpses toward the back of the cave. The light reflected in a sparkle down a dark tunnel leading away from the pillared area. Gest moved the light and it caught again, reflecting facets of brilliant color.
 

"Radio above," he said, no longer focused on the wretched forms of the dead, but on the potential riches beyond. "Tell them to wait while we investigate further. We mustn't let anyone else see this, Si."
 

The visions dissipated with Gest's interruption and Simon found himself obeying in a daze, walking to the mouth of the cave and radioing that they would report again in another hour. As he walked back through the cave of the dead, he tucked the book into his inner clothing, close to his heart, relishing the strength that he was drawing from its growing potency.
 

In the second chamber, he found Gest examining one of the walls.
 

"Look Si, these must be diamonds." Gest turned, his face illuminated by the torchlight, eyes aflame with desire for limitless wealth. "This is where I rebuild my fortune." He paused. "Where
we
rebuild our fortune, brother. Together."
 

Simon nodded, moving closer to examine the gems embedded in the ice wall, for behind the shining stones, he could see a darker shadow in the shape of an altar. He sensed that was the true goal and he felt his excitement soar as he realized that the Great Work could indeed be finished. He would be the one to return the book to its rightful place and he would claim the rewards beyond temporal riches, leaving the jewels to Gest's greed.
 

Simon reached for his pack and unhooked the pick-axe. He gripped the handle and hefted its weight, giving it a few swings to test the action.
 

"Careful with that," Gest said, his voice imperious.
 

At his brother's tone, Simon suddenly felt a desire for great physical strength, a need to turn his body into hard, powerful muscle. He was sick of being considered the studious weakling, disgusted with himself for allowing his brother's dominance for too long. He ignored Gest and swung the axe heavily into the wall. The thud resounded through the chamber and Simon levered a hunk of the bejeweled ice to the floor where Gest started to break it into chunks with hammer and chisel, picking out the shining gems. They both soon removed their outer jackets, working up a sweat in the small cave with their labor.
 

The pile of jewels soon grew larger and Gest started to fill his rucksack as Simon broke through into an alcove that looked to be carved by ancient human hands. He worked faster to pull back the remaining ice and soon revealed an altar of black stone, carved with mysterious symbols. There was an indentation in the middle, and Simon knew instinctively that the book should be laid there.
 

"What is it?" Gest asked. "Do you think it's worth anything?"
 

Simon felt rage erupt within him at his brother's disregard for the sacred, his unthinking selfishness. He turned in anger and Gest shrank back at Simon's expression of hatred.
 

"OK, OK," he said, hands outstretched in mock surrender. "Let's just pack up the gems and get out of here. We'll get the team to come down and get the rest, but these jewels, we keep for ourselves."
 

As Gest bent to fasten his rucksack, Simon reached into his clothes for the book. He unwrapped the precious tome, a dark pleasure rising up within him as he touched the skin of its covering. With reverence, he placed it on the altar within the boundaries of the indentation. It fit perfectly and Simon knelt before it, bending his head in veneration.