Hellraiser: Hellfire: Part Three

by XanderDig

Though there were no dirty snowdrifts or piles of melting slush here, London still felt more like a city under the yoke of winter than New York did. A thin drizzle fell slowly, constantly. The cold permeated the air, chilling me to the bone. I pulled my black coat close around me and mused that I would have preferred a storm, all hail and thunder and lightening. I didn't realize that one was almost upon me.

The neighborhood was little better than a slum, and I wished that I hadn't stepped out of the cab early to get a lay of the land. Even in the rain, the smell of garbage was pervasive. I passed empty storefronts with shattered glass in the windows and structures blackened by fire. There were cars stripped in the street. Every surface was covered in graffiti: "PAKIS GO HOME," one eloquently advised. "NF" shouted another. There had been a high school in Philly, North Fulton, whose football team had been fond of spray painting the same legend. I didn't think this was by the same group.

Refuse collected in the storm drains, so there was a good inch of water out on the road. I might have been concerned about getting splashed by a passing auto or lorry, as the natives called them, but nobody seemed to drive in Paddington on a Saturday morning. I glanced at the address in my pocket again; the ink was running in the wet. Still, it was legible. I looked at the small tourist map I purchased at the airport, turned a corner and continued on my way.

Looking at maps in rough locales is never a good idea, particularly when one is wearing an eight-thousand-dollar Burberry coat. Across the pockmarked road were three boys with the look of local toughs. Their heads were shaved, emphasizing their thick, stupid brows. They all wore blue jackets with flags on the shoulder, black pants, and jackboots with white laces. A gang, perhaps the poets behind the local wall art. Knowing I shouldn't, that time was of the essence, I nodded over to them and smiled. Then I slowed to a stroll. True to form, the skinheads began to pace me on the other side of the street. They spoke quietly to each other, egging one-another on. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, or a lizard brain desire for masculine dominance - I wasn't sure of the "whys" of my actions, but what did they matter, really?

There was a thin alley between two buildings up ahead and I turned down it. It was heaped with garbage, and it occurred to me that the momentary enjoyment I was about to receive was probably not worth the damage to my shoes. I stepped over the sloughed-off refuse as best I could and made my way deep into the fissure. Before I even reached the end, I heard footsteps behind me, the boys' haphazard attempts at stealth as successful as a herd of rhino. I noticed I had an audience. There were two children beyond the wooden fence at the end of the alley. One was an Indian boy, the other pale, with dark hair and blue eyes. I winked at them and turned around.

For a moment, my "pursuers" stopped like deer in headlights. Then they remembered that *they* were mugging *me*.

"Oi!" belched one. "You some kinda queer then!? Lookin' for a bit'a roughie!?!" The three began to fan out, less concerned for their shoes than I had been.

"We'll give it to ya rough, missie!" shouted the biggest one.

"Give us yur to-dos and maybe you'll be walkin' outa here," said the first. The one who hadn't spoken was only a boy, little older than the kids on the other side of the fence. While the two bruisers would only end up lying to their friends about what happened today (presuming I left them with the ability to speak), the frightened boy might still be taught a lesson.

"Let me make you an alternate proposal, you ridiculous little strumpet," I said mildly. The large one pulled a short length of pipe from his waistband, surging forward, but doubt licked the leader's face. I focused on him and ignored the charging gorilla. "Why don't you take off your clothes right now, and after I treat you like the other children in juvenile did, I'll let you walk away from this."

The leader's mouth fell to an almost comical doughnut, exacerbated by the younger one's snort. I couldn't enjoy the moment, though, the big one was on me.

He shoved me back with all his might, and I almost toppled over a mound of garbage.

"Break him, Arnie!" yelled the leader, still rooted in place. The gorilla reared back with his pipe while I was off balance and brought it down in a wide arc, slow as a B-52. I could have moved, of course, but where would the fun in that have been?

There was a hollow clang when the steel hit my forehead, and I heard one of the kids behind the fence screech and run away. Even the other skinheads paused in their advance, presuming that the scrap was over before it really began. There were mistaken. I held the pose for a moment, my head theatrically held back, allowing the strength from the blow to course into my muscles. Then I turned back to the ape with a wide smile on my face.

"This is going to hurt," I told him.

"Christ, Johnny!" he screamed. I grabbed the boy by the arm and yanked the pipe from his grasp. He held up his other hand to ward off a blow, but it never came. I pulled a Superman and bent the pipe for all to see. Then I threw the big one into the brick edifice of the adjoining building. He landed hard enough to crumble the mortar.

The leader, Johnny, was a whelp, but he wasn't a cowardly one. He whipped a butterfly knife from his pocket and charged. He tried to cut me but I danced around his unskilled attack and slapped his face. Enraged, he attacked again, so I slapped him harder before I grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off the ground. I looked over at the smallest one, staring at me with wide, wet eyes.

"You see, boy? There is always someone bigger." I toyed with the notion of snapping Johnny's neck, but I had been seen by the kids beyond the fence, and needless complications were the last thing I needed. Instead, I tossed him casually by his friend, where he coughed and gasped for breath. Finally I went to the young one and grabbed him by the collar of his coat.

"Don't let me catch you running around with this lot anymore," I said, doing my best super hero. When I was done here, I could go and save people from a burning building or rescue a cat from a tree. "There's a good lad." Tears were flowing freely down the kid's face. I reached up and tousled his hair paternally when he cut my hand with the knife he was concealing in his palm.

I cried out, jerking my hand protectively to my chest and the boy turned and ran, screaming at the top of his lungs. The little bastard cut the back of my hand almost to the bone. Blood flowed, and I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket, pressing it hard into the wound. The affectation of carrying around a kerchief was something I'd taken from the Club - I was a sleeve man left to my own devices - but now I was thankful. Instead of giving a chase, I was so enraged that I nearly went back to finish off the other two.

Then I thought about the box, and my quest for Buckman. I had to get to Constantine and a run in with the London police would not expedite matters. I removed the cloth and looked at the cut on my hand. Now I'd shed blood for LeMarchand's Box - whatever it held had better damn well be worth it.

I reapplied pressure to the laceration and stormed out of the alley, the eyes of the kid behind the gate heavy on my back.

                              ***

My anger and annoyance made me careless, and I became hopelessly lost. I walked back and forth through the neighborhood. I stopped at a small druggist's to pick up a bandage for my hand and to ask directions, but I couldn't understand what the foreign cashier was telling me. Foreign? I had to chuckle at the irony. By the time I finally found the address Chantel had written down, now little more than a blue splotch on the expensive, fibrous stationary of the Club, I was chilled to the bone and my hand was a hornets nest.

The building was gray, of course. It seemed that everything in London was. It was a brick structure, four floors tall. There was a butcher shop on the street level. The meats and cheeses displayed in the window indicated that the place was on its last legs. I looked inside to find an ancient Asian man staring at me from behind the counter. He offered no greeting. The door to the building was next to the shop's entrance, and I opened the glass door and went inside.

Narrow and claustrophobic, the stairwell smelled of piss. Paint was peeling inside, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as soon as I crossed the threshold. There was something not right about the building, something wrong on a subliminal level. I looked up the stairs and heard a woman moan from up in the darkness - none of the hall lights seemed to be working.

"Naturally," I said. I rubbed the back of my hand and walked up, the soft wood squeaking plaintively under my weight. At least I didn't need to go all the way to the top.

At the landing of the second floor, I turned to walk down the hall when another moan drifted down. The sound was deep and wanton, but also pained. I looked down the hall. It was thick with shadows. Only one of the flourescent bulbs flickered with an audible buzz, bathing the green walls in an illusory strobe. The window at the end of the hall was taped over. Another moan. A howl, really, and there were consonants in the noise - something was being said. I began to climb the stairs when the noise stopped abruptly.

Something crashed in one of the apartments - it sounded like a dresser falling over - and the scream stopped in mid-breath. There had been enough distractions today. I turned and walked down the hall of the second floor.

Evens were on the left, and odds the right. The burgundy carpet was a jigsaw puzzle of dark stains, and the smells of excrement, cigarette smoke and stale beer were heavy. 209. 211. The door of 213 was open. The apartment was a studio, and a man inside was calmly shooting up. He held an elastic band wrapped around his slim upper arm tightly in his teeth, and he punctured a black vein with a syringe, depressing the plunger in a practiced motion. He withdrew the needle. A thin jet of blood squirted straight up when he opened his mouth and released the latex tourniquet. I looked up and saw that the ceiling was covered in cris-cross brown patterns that looked somehow familiar. The man looked out at me, his eyelids fluttering.

"Old faithful, boss," he said. He smiled and laid back on his mattress. I turned away and continued down the hall. 215. Finally, 217. The apartment I was looking for. I could hear music on the other side of the warped, plywood door. Something loud and driving. Why on earth would Buckman want anything from the kind of man who would live in a rat trap like this? I knocked on the door like a cop, three loud raps of my knuckles.

After a moment, the music cut out with a scratch on vinyl. I knocked again.

"Bollocks on it! I'm coming, Chas!" Surprisingly, there was no noise of locks disengaging. This man must have been confident or stupid not to lock his doors in an environment like this. The door opened and a blond man frowned up at me. His hair was spiky, but one side was flat as though he were only lately lying on his side. He wore a T-shirt, boxer shorts, and his eyes were rimmed in the kind of red that speaks more of tears than drugs. A cigarette dangled from his lips. The man looked neither surprised nor intimidated by my appearance at his door.

"Are you John Constantine?"

"Depends on who's asking."

"My name is Shaw, and I'm here on business. I understand correctly, you recently . . ."

"If you're here on business you can buy us a cuppa, can't you," he interjected, and he shut the door in my face. I was so surprised by the audacity of the action that I didn't even have time to become angry. A minute later, Constantine reappeared with pants on and a brown trench coat more suited to the weather than my own. He brushed past me and shut his door, ambling down the hall.

"Let's go, gramps," he said. He never locked his door, and if the caterwauling from upstairs fazed him, it didn't show.

                             ***

"So you're one of the old queen's boys then," he said. Constantine's manner was so disarming that it was difficult to tell if this was meant as a challenge or a term of affection. If Buckman, the old queen in question, was correct about this man being in the con game, then he must have been very good at his vocation.

As we walked through the drizzling wasteland from his apartment to a nearby cafe we talked about nothing at all. My flight, his life on the dole, even the weather ("It'll piss down like this 'til May or so," he said, "then we'll get a right rain."). Through it all, he steered conversation away from my line of questioning and to more prosaic concerns. Now, as we sat across from one another, he with strong tea, myself with coffee so weak it did not deserve the title, it was time to get to business. I reached out and lit his cigarette.

"You know the Club?" I asked.

"I'd rather wager I know the Hellfire Club a bit better than you, Sebastian. The old git wanted me to come to New York a few years ago to give him some lessons." I laughed, but Constantine didn't blink. Perhaps he was insane. "I know that your club is made up of a bunch of rich blokes with delusions of grandeur. I know that Eddie Buckman has his fingers in a lot of very twisted pies, and that he's a paranoid convinced that foreigners and mutants are out to get him." I made sure not to blink at the word.

"There's more, Shaw. I know that as much money and influence and power as he does have, there are a lot of things your King doesn't know shit about. He doesn't admit that, you understand. He comes off like he's looked into the abyss, like he's fucking been there, but it's all a scam. When he's unsure of the consequences of his little hedge magics, he uses an apprentice for the dirty work. Do you understand me, Shaw?" The question hung in the air between us.

"He doesn't take the risks. Just the gains," Constantine concluded.

"Maybe so," I said. "Either way, I have significant resources of my own, so if you answer my questions, you'll never need another welfare check."

"Your funeral. Cash and carry," he answered. "Shoot."

"I'm looking for a box. A puzzle box built by a man named LeMarchand.."

He looked at me and for the shadow of a moment a real sadness crept across his face. Then he shook his head and stood, stubbing out his butt.

"Thanks for the tea. Ta." He made to walk out and I realized that I would have to be more direct.

"The hell . . ." Constantine cried when I threw him back into the booth. The owner of the diner, a burly man with a thick moustache, made to run around the counter. He carried a funny bat, flat and wide in his hands. I turned to him.

"You're going to want to go have a smoke in back, friend. A good long puff." Constantine tried to move around me and I shoved him back into the seat. The cook looked at both of us in turn.

"Sorry, Johnnie," he said. He walked through the swinging door to the kitchen. When he was gone, I turned back to the blond man. His face was not the mask of fear I expected. If anything, it was contemptuous. No matter.

"Mr. Constantine, I would very much like to pay you to assist me in finding Le Marchand's Box. I know you have some idea where it is, because I know you possessed it at one time. I require that information. I will have it."

"LeMarchand's Box?"

"That's right, John. This can be very easy."

"Right. Give us a pen." I handed one to him and he scribbled an address. To my surprise, it wasn't far off.

"What's this?"

"It's an antique shop 'round in Notting Hill. I know for an absolute fact that they have a LeMarchand puzzle box." He stood up and faced me. "In fact, if you go through all the shops over there, I figure you'll find ten, maybe fifteen LeMarchand's. Good errand boy'll bring back a bloody bouquet of the things."

"You don't want to trifle with me, Constantine. The box I want . . ."

"That's the fucking point, boyo! You don't have any conception of what you're asking for! It's not 'LeMarchand's Box,' Shaw. It's the fucking Lament. Do you know what it is, Shaw? Do you have any notion of what the Lament Configuration can do?"

"I, I . . ."

"Of course not. Because it doesn't serve the White King's purpose for you to know what he's gotten you into," Constantine grinned. "I don't know you, Sebastian, and I don't give two shites about your life. But I know that the Lament only brings misery and suffering to those who seek it. I know that whoever finds the Gashes will be owned by them forever. *Forever*, Shaw. Whatever Buckman has promised you is not worth the price you'll pay."

"What are the Gashes?" I asked.

"Jesus. Leave it alone, man. You don't want to know."

"I will know, Constantine. I intend to know why Buckman sent me after the box, and I'll know why you're so keen to keep me away from it. Now tell me where it is."

He shook his head and lit another cigarette. He told me that he didn't know exactly, that when it's returned to its rightful guardian, the Lament picks its own resting place. He said that it probably already knew I was looking for it, and that it would reveal itself in time.

"But if you really need to make another step to be ready for it, try Bangkok. There's a good chance it's there, Shaw, and you probably deserve what it'll give you. Ta." He told me an address in the Thai capital as he put on his coat and walked to the door.

"'What it will give me,' Constantine?" I asked. I had to get in my shot. "How would you know? You never had the nerve to solve the puzzle."

"That what he told you, sonny?" He didn't turn around. "I solved it well enough. Down in Newcastle. I thought it would give up the answers I needed for a spot of trouble I was having. It gave me answers, all right. All I could take and more." John Constantine walked away into the mist, and I found myself with more questions than when I met him.

                             ***

My driver was a rotund man who insisted on telling me five hundred years of history for every site we passed. There were a great many of them over the hour it took to get back to Gatwick. I tuned him out to think of my own artifact, my sleep deprived mind turning and turning the puzzle pieces it had been given. The names swirled like mist, the puzzle box turning along with them whenever I closed my eyes. LeMarchand, De L'Isle, Constantine, Lament, Gashes. The Gashes most of all. Buckman had talked about guardians -were these the same things that Constantine alluded to? I was not naive enough to think the supernatural impossible. I had seen and experienced too much for that, but supernatural golems seemed unlikely.

All ancient treasures were protected curses and the like. They were only cultural metaphors so ingrained in legend that the bad luck that often followed the possessor of such things was psychologically preordained. Stories like that were the wives tales that kept children out of storm cellars. Of course, those cellars were always where the Christmas presents were hidden. Whatever was powerful enough to require a gatekeeper was worth having. I paid the cab driver, and walked into the terminal.

"Your tickets seem to be in order, Mr. Shaw," said the perky girl behind the counter. She began to slide my boarding pass to me. I stilled her by placing my hand atop her own. Her flesh was deliciously warm after the chill outside.

"I have to make a change. When is the next nonstop to Bangkok?" She looked at me a bit too long, then down at her directory until she found the flight. I managed to wrangle a first class seat where none was to be had, and had the layover been any longer, I might have tried to get even more. Such were the advantages of wealth. As it was, though, I only had an hour or so and customs was a bear. I said goodbye to the English rose and walked to the international terminal.

Completely unable to sleep in the air, I bought the new George Stark novel at the duty-free shop and wondered how long it would be before my lack of rest caught up with me. It had been something more than two days since I'd had a good night's sleep, and it might be another two before I did. Had I been thinking, I would have asked Constantine's neighbor where to find some coke. Fasting and a lack of sleep was a key component to any vision quest, and I was coming perilously close to the dream state. I bought a coffee.

There was a surprise waiting for me on the other side of customs. I made my way through the line, thinner here than it had been at JFK, but still incredibly slow. They called my flight over the PA, and it was clear that a number of others were also last minute flyers. These were all business people traveling for work. Winter still held the world in its grasp north of the equator, and people weren't much for tourism in the cold. Most of my companions in the day's one mile club were dressed as I was (though less soaked and out of sorts), and a plane must have just landed because a throng of business people passed me by coming the other way. I didn't see him until I had nearly run into him.

The Rook stood directly in my path, a thin grin on his pale face. He wore what might have been the same immaculate black suit as he had at 54. Regarding me with his large, unblinking eyes, he did not so much as nod when I approached - he only stood quietly, an island in the river of foot traffic. There was a large nylon bag hung over his shoulder. Just as I arrived in front of him, an electronic trill sounded from within the satchel. Never taking his eyes from my face, the Rook flipped open the top and pulled a telephone handset from within. He handed it to me.

I hadn't used one of the new satellite phones before, and I could feel the eyes of the other passengers regarding me curiously as they passed. I took it so gingerly that it must have looked as though I didn't trust the apparatus. I slowly put it to my ear. There was a static noise in the receiver that sounded like pine straw on a campfire.

"Hello?" I said. The Rook stared calmly, unperturbed when my plane was announced again. "Hello?"

"Where is the box?" asked Edward Buckman. "Why are you going to Thailand?"

"Constantine didn't have it. You're having me watched?" I felt anger begin to rise despite myself.

"Of course I am, you idiot. My eyes and ears span this world and nothing is secret from me. You have no thoughts I do not comprehend before you think them, Shaw. Never forget that. Now tell me, why are you going to Thailand?"

I thought to answer with the flaw in his question - that he should have known already since he was so all seeing. The little worm thought himself a spider in the midst of a web, sending out minions to do his work. I would not comply so easily, reward or no. I said none of this. The Rook's impassive, grinning face put me right off speaking my mind. Instead:

"He said that the box knew when someone was seeking it. That it would be waiting in Bangkok. He gave me an address."

"An address? Good. Good. I didn't think the little rascal would have it himself. He probably tried to throw it out to sea, the coward. You are not a coward, are you Shaw?" The static on the phone hissed and whirred like the whispering of the old.

"I'm not, Mr. Buckman." I didn't tell him that I doubted Constantine was either.

"Good. That's why I've made you my champion in this. For your courage. That is why I will offer you rewards your imagination can only begin to describe. Not a coward. Not a coward. I do hope you're not a fool, either." My flight was given its last boarding call, but the Rook only continued to stare. I swear the small man never blinked at all.

"No, White King. I am no fool."

"Than stop imagining what must be in my puzzle box, Shaw. It's like Blackbeard, is it not? You may have any room in my house but one. Even a moment in that threshold means your doom. You understand, don't you? To solve my puzzle means an end to your future. And remember, young man."

"Yes?"

"I have my eyes on you always." For a moment, there was only the whispering static. Then the Rook reached up, plucked the phone from my ear and replaced it in the bag. He lifted his arm and tapped his watch twice. I held his eyes for a moment, anger growing out of my impotence with Buckland, but the Rook would not budge. He only stood there, the ticking of his wristwatch barely audible as he held it by his right ear.

I ran for my gate and barely made the plane on time.

                             ***

The soup scalded my tongue, but even the pain did not dull the unusual taste of the exotic broth. "An idiot," Buckman had called me. I stood at the noodle cart eating voraciously - the flight had taken almost eighteen hours, and beyond peanuts and bourbon, the airplane food held no appeal. I needn't have worried, though. Less than a dollar bought me a feast of noodles and spices, and I could feel the hot concoction refreshing my tired body from within. If only I could find a tailor, a bed and a barber, I might get back to being myself. I turned around to look at the wide street that ran along the edge of the Chao Phraya River.

The air along the boulevard was perfumed in a thousand alien aromas, and it seemed that an endless array of people paraded back and forth. They bought food or cologne or imitation Gucci from the street vendors who shouted at the passing tourists. Some bartered, some did not. Locals did not come to this little stretch by the river, not those who had nothing to sell at any rate. They manned carts, moved supplies and hawked wares both legal and ill.

American servicemen were the most numerous group of tourists, Navy mostly, followed by the Japanese. The rest of the young faces looking gluttonously around were the scions of the rich blowing their graduation money to expand their minds in the East. They were my age, mostly, but it seemed as though they were from a different planet. Other Asians wandered about making this a wicked melting pot, for it wasn't this avenue that most of the assembled had came to Bangkok for. This city wasn't a shopping destination, unless you were shopping for flesh.

I finished my bowl, surprisingly full. The meal was so good that I was tempted to lean over the lip of the small man's cart. On reflection, it was probably best not to see the wizard behind that particular curtain. Better to begin my walk - I had a ways to go.

The address that Constantine had given me was miles north of the royal palace in the industrial section of town. The Luk Luang tributary ran from the Phraya deep into northern Bangkok. Heavy junks and barges ran up and down the water at all hours, picking up shipments at the warehouses and running them to ports throughout Asia. It was to one of these depots that Constantine sent me. It was fine; the sites along my route were much more to my liking than the pomp and circumstance of the daytime tourist pathways.

Prostitution was not legal under the rule of the King, but was neither it hidden nor confined to street corners in the dead of night. Bangkok's red light district was famous the world over for its absolute depravity, and as I strolled its alleys in my shirt sleeves, I could see why. Every building's lower floor was lined with windows, and in each of them were the children of the night. I stood for a moment with a group of men staring at a young girl who could not have been fifteen. She wore her hair in pigtails, and the rouge on her cheeks cut a striking contrast to the schoolgirl skirt around her waist. If only I had more time . . .

The crowds were thickest amongst the whores, and less so the deeper one walked into the morally blind world. Soon, the figures in the windows were more haggard and worldly wise. The barkers in front of the cat houses cried out in their broken English/Thai/Japanese about the debasements performed within. They yelled that no matter how jaded a man you might have been, what you would witness inside would reawaken the lust in your marrow. Their talk of snakes and ping-pong balls only brought a grin to my face. These carneys underestimated my weariness.

Even these petty perversions ended and I passed out of the district, only the most hardened continuing along my path. The ornate window dressings gave way to darkened alleys and dockside bars. The come-ons here were less well rehearsed. As I rounded a corner, I heard voices from an alcove, low and mean. The recess was dark, but I saw the shadows ripping and clawing at one another, wet and violent. Still, I continued the path.

The buildings were low and squat, the vicissitudes of Thai architecture giving way to the blockiness of utility. I walked along the Luk Luang, the massive cranes used for transporting cargo reaching for the sky like the skeletons of ancient gods. The warehouses were mostly empty, and few barges were out on the water.

I found Samsen, my road, and turned up the street. The climes were squalid, and fires burned in oil drums, surrounded by the sleeping forms of the homeless and unemployed. The warehouses here were burned out, and the smell of oil and gasoline was heavy in the air. When I arrived at the address Constantine gave me, it was only an empty lot filled with weeds.

"Son of a bitch!" I shouted. I kicked one of the drums, sending it spiraling through the air in a rain of sparks. I shouted more, swearing revenge on the lousy Britain. A group of old men who had been sleeping around the collective warmth shouted in alarm. They rose and stumbled away as quickly as they could.

Truly possessed by my rage, I grabbed hold of another of the burning drums. Unmindful of the searing pain tearing my hands, I hurled it after the terrified men. It exploded upon hitting the ground. The men dashed around the flaming debris in the midst of the avenue. I continued my assault, lashing out at everything in my path.

When the final drum was prostrate to my fury, I leaned against a fence, breathing heavily. I had come around the world for nothing, a pawn in a game between two chess players inferior to me. Buckland called me "an idiot." "An idiot." Perhaps he was right.

"Spare any change, boss?" I nearly jumped out of my skin. I looked around to find a homeless man sitting on a small cart. He had no legs, and his makeshift transportation's wheels squeaked as he dragged himself toward me. "Big change? Little change? Make no difference."

My hand was smarting, and the last thing I wanted was to deal with some drunk cripple. "Off with you," I said.

"You give money, maybe I help you."

"I'm beyond help, I'm afraid."

"Maybe so. Maybe so," he said, "but I know what you need." I reached into my pocket, wincing when my hand brushed over the fabric, and fished out my change from the noodle stand. The little man took it eagerly.

"What might that be?"

"You looking for something. You need to find what you looking for." The little man started laughing, loud and long.

"No shit," I said. I was going to reach down and take my change back when I saw something beyond the fire burning in the middle of the road. On the other side of the heat and flames was a figure wearing a long, wet black coat. His teeth glinted in the light, and he nodded to me as I stepped forward.

It was the faceless man. The cripple laughed on and on.

"Why are you following me?" I demanded. The faceless man only stood his ground, the air between us shimmering in the heat. "Are you working for Buckman?" The figure turned and walked away.

"Got to find what you seeking," laughed the cripple. I ran forward, jumping over the flames and chasing the faceless man. He ran as well.

                             ***

He was always close enough that I could see him, never so near that I could grasp his coat tail and bring my pursuit to a conclusion. We ran through the streets, through the red light district and past the docks. We charged across the Chao and around the palace, the Royal Guard disinterested in our private game of hide 'n seek. If the stoic soldiers noticed that my mark had no eyes, no nose, nothing on his gray face save a set of grinning teeth, they showed no sign.

The figure ran through a shopping mall, and I followed him through, the glaring lights stunning me. All the faces I passed seemed to regard me impassively, as though they were watching a film and nothing more. We escaped the shopping area and ran deeper into the city. We ran past a karaoke bar. At least twenty youths sat on Vespas out front, all of them wearing sunglasses despite the night. They pulled out just as I ran by, and for a moment I was completely surrounded by them in the street, blinded.

As quickly as the swarm had begun, it ended, and it seemed that I was alone in the most desolate and empty part of any city. A rail yard stretched before me and I walked toward it. A rational part of my mind shouted that the line of sleep depravation had been crossed, that dream and waking were becoming indistinguishable. I silenced the voice when I saw light leaking from under the door of a boxcar up ahead.

There was a large man standing in front of the car, easily six-feet-ten, and he looked me up and down when I approached. Finally, he barked something at me in Thai.

"I don't understand," I said. "Have you seen . . ."

The bouncer held out his hand, and I understood the universality of the gesture well enough. I pulled out my billfold and counted out money until the man was satisfied. A great many notes filled the giant's hand before he knocked twice against the side of the car. The door slid open only wide enough for me to slip through, a sweet aroma wafting from inside. I stepped up into the red lighted space.

Cots and couches filled the room, and tapestries strung from the ceiling separated spaces in the car, creating rooms. Men and women lied around on the beds and pillows, contented expressions lolling across their boneless countenances. I stood quietly, unsure of what to do or say until a beautiful woman of Chinese ancestry approached me. She was wearing a jade Suzy Wong dress embroidered with a pattern of gold filigree that was familiar, and her eyes were black as coal. She smiled and took my hands, leading me toward one of the fabric walls.

We went around to the other side, and she slowly pushed me back on a small couch with an ornate houka beside it, four pipes snaking out from the central cylinder. The pleasant smile never left her face as she pulled a packet wrapped in foil from a pocket in her tiny dress. She unwrapped a small, black marble that resembled tar more than anything else and handed it to me. The gummy stuff smelled like roses. The young woman worked on the apparatus, lighting a fire inside it, then took the marble and placed it in the top.

She smoothed the hair on my sweaty forehead, and ran her fingers along my stubbled cheeks. Then she handed me the pipe. I breathed in the floral vapors, pulling them deep into my lungs. Opium had virtually disappeared from the world of the twentieth century. Heroin was cheaper to produce, and infinitely more addictive. It simply made no economic sense to go through the time-consuming process of coaxing droplets of nectar from the beautiful red flowers in the modern age.

I inhaled again and my cheeks grew numb. I felt the world falling away as I stared at the beautiful girl. Her lips were so red, so glossed that they glowed in the muted light. I realized why the embroidery on her dress was so familiar - the swooping, spiraling pattern was the same as the one on LeMarchand's gilded puzzle box. I drew from the houka a third time, and then the woman took the pipe from my unwilling hand, pulling me to my feet.

Without a word, she led me back through the central room. I felt light on my feet, as though I were floating through a flowery afterworld. I glanced down at the people lying on their couches, at the awkward way that they were positioned, arms and legs and heads cast at obscene angles. I looked at the red bulb hanging from the ceiling and realized that the light was crimson because the bulb was covered in blood. They were all dead, laid out in an orgy of flesh, an abattoir tableau parodying wanton pleasure.

Stumbling to the door, I made for an escape when the girl grabbed my arm. Her grip was steel, and I would have attempted to fight her if it wasn't for her angelic smile. It was calming. It never fell, even when she stepped over the dead.

She led me to the other side of the car, past tapestries and rooms, far further than we should have been able to go in the constricted space of a train car. When we passed a mirror, I was shocked at my appearance. My face was drawn, my eyes wide and wild. Sweat had soaked through my shirt and my lips were dry and cracked. At last, we came to a room.

There was a simple table in the middle, with two simple wooden chairs facing each other. The woman took me to one of them and sat me down. She leaned down to kiss me, her tongue hot in my mouth. I closed my eyes as she sat astride me, writhing gently. Then she bit my lip, hard enough to draw blood. I cried out, my eyes bolting open and for a moment her flawless brown skin was gray and lifeless. Her eyes were open, too. The lids had been cut away, so they couldn't close.

I pushed her back and she stumbled, hair falling into her face. I was ready to stand and fight when she brushed it back. Her face was normal. There was a thin line of blood on her lips, my blood, and she flicked her tongue over it. She smiled again and walked out of the room.

The passage of time was impossible to track. My lip throbbed. So did my hand, but the pain was distant and illusory. The opium made everything dreamlike, and after a time my eyes became heavy despite my fear. They drifted closed for only a moment before I heard a voice.

"What's your pleasure, sir?" An ancient man sat before me. He might have been Thai or Chinese, but he could also have been white or something else all together. A thin beard dangled from his chin, and he regarded me curiously with his fingers steepled in front of him.

"What's your pleasure?" he asked again.

"I've come for something," I mumbled. "A box. A puzzle box."

"Ah. A puzzle box. They are rare nowadays. Very pricey. Most expensive."

"I can pay. I'll pay whatever the price."

"Will you? Will you indeed?"

"Whatever the price." He nodded and placed the Lament Configuration on the table with a hollow click. The box was smaller than I expected, the familiar whirling golden pattern covering its faces less mystifying so close up. I reached forward and took hold of it, and the ancient man smiled.

"Your father will be proud, Mr. Shaw," he said. "Use the back door on the way out."

                            ***

I have always been a slave to instant gratification. Buckman had called me and idiot, but I wasn't insipid enough to blithely bring him the prize. He picked the wrong man for that. I held the box greedily as I reeled through the train yard, the birds chirping out their pre-dawn songs. My flight left at nine in the morning. There would certainly be enough time to solve the puzzle, see the contents and make it to the airport on time. Constantine might not have been man enough for the treasure, but I certainly was.

There was an empty cargo car with its massive door ajar, and I tossed my coat inside. A peek around told me I was alone, so I rolled in myself. Slamming the door shut, I pulled my zippo from my pocket and lit it, the small flame proving to be my only illumination. The train was stifling so I pulled off my shirt. I smelled bad enough that it even offended me. Perhaps I would have time to stop at a hotel to shower before the journey home.

LeMarchand's box really was the marvel that everyone had said. I ran my fingers along its surface feeling for a seam and came up dry. Buckman had only allowed me a few moments to regard the instructions in the grimoire, surely part of his attempt to keep me from learning whatever secrets the puzzle held.

The lighter had nearly gone out by the time I made a breakthrough. I was leaning down, my head practically on the floor to see. There was a disk of gold on one face of the Lament, and when you pressed three of the corners, it would rotate. I turned the dial, satisfied by the deep clicking the motion produced. In the distance, I heard what sounded like chains jangling in the night, and I became concerned that the car I was in might be getting hitched for a journey. Regardless, I was too close now to stop my efforts.

After rotating the circle for a full revolution, I pressed in with my thumbs. The disk gave way and ratcheted deep into the surface, releasing a series of locks as it went. I felt some give, so I twisted, the two sides of the puzzle going in opposite directions until they met again in the middle. This time the noise that the interlocking mechanism made was impossibly deep, a thick grinding discord that might have come from some great industrial machine in the nineteenth century. Then it moved entirely on its own.

Four quadrants of the box lifted of their own accord, rotated, and slid back down. The new shape it created was of a star. I marveled at LeMarchand's artistry. Despite the complete change in the object's architecture, all of the gold inlay still matched up perfectly. The glittering patterns were unbroken. I glanced at the lighter and saw that it had finally gone out. So how was I seeing?

I looked up to find slats of pale blue light leaking impossibly into the room. It was as though windows had materialized where none existed. A thin mist rose in the streams of light, carrying the scent of burning meat with it. The noise of jangling chains grew even louder behind me, accompanied by the clop-clopping of wood striking wood. I turned around.

Thick metal chains hung from the ceiling, swaying slightly despite the lack of a breeze. In their midst was a large wooden block. It was warped and rectangular, the same material as the box in my hand but much larger. It spun around slowly, ceaselessly on the end of a chain, deep pits and scours covering its surface. The brown stains saturating its edifice told readily enough what the impossible object was. There was a chopping block on this railway car. A cutting board formed out of thin air. I felt myself begin to shake. My breath showed in the cold.

"Sebastian Hiram Shaw," commanded a bass voice behind me. I recognized it instantly - it was the doctor from my dream, the one who knew my blood was deadly. I spun around and knew. I knew what Buckman and Constantine had warned me about. I turned around and I knew the Gashes.

There were four of them, their skin the pitted gray of the dead. They all wore shining black clothes that seemed stitched into their very skins. One of them was monstrously obese, rolls of fat dangling from every appendage. His face was pulled thin, his hanging jowls and flaccid chins having been stretched around to the back of his head and stapled together. A thin rope of drool streamed from his taut mouth to the floor. A second of the creatures had no legs. It stood on impossible stretched and spindly arms, clicking its steel fingernails on the floor as though bored.

The woman was the worst. The shimmering outfit fused into her skin did not cover her swollen, pregnant belly. Her gray hands stroked it lovingly, running over the open wound of a caesarian incision cleaved amateurishly into her torso. Blood flowed over her skirts from the mangled tear, and something inside her was moving. While I watched, something black and fluid reached out of the fissure, peering out into the world for an unhappy, hungry glance.

"Sebastian Shaw," the leader of the group ordered again. He stood in the center of the car facing me with his devil's eyes, a black-toothed scowl hacked across his mouth. A grid had been carved into his toneless skin, and at every intersecting point, a nail had been driven into his skull. The singlet he wore did not hide the carvings on his chest, cuts held perpetually open by pins sewn into his skin.

The Gash held out his hand, and the Lament flew from mine to his. He looked at LeMarchand's Box, and it folded itself back into a cube. Then he let his arm drop by his side and he turned his unwanted attention back to me. Whatever unnatural calm the opium and sleeplessness had given me was gone now. I stood before the box's guardians possessed by a horror so abject and terrible that I found myself unable to breathe.

"You have called us, Shaw," said the Gash with nails in his skull. "We have come."

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