It’s finally happening, he thought. Had he been capable of the act, he might’ve cried in sheer joy.
The Conscripts under his command watched the outer perimeters, high and low, with great vigilance, always on guard for signs of an anti-Luciferic attack. Platoons of Golems marched along the ramparts, their horrid clay faces blank, the sounds of their massive feet thundering on the basalt causeway. And all the while, the sub-inlet gushed and gushed.
Exactly how long it would take to fill the pit to its six-billion-gallon prerequisite, the Legionnaire could not reckon, as time itself was unreckonable. Instead of counting seconds, minutes, and hours, then, he reasoned he could count depth. By the looks of the progress now, most of the pit had been filled to a depth of at least one foot . . .
Only sixty-five more to go.
Next, he stared directly at the sub-inlet’s great Y-connector, and in the waterfall-like expulsion of noxious fluid he knew he could see solid objects as welclass="underline" detritus from the sea, scraps of old boats long since sunken by nauseating nautical creatures or artillery from vessels of the Satanic Navy. Corpses, too, were rife amid the inflow, but closer scrutiny showed him living creatures as well, siphoned all the way from the Gulf to here, via the Pipeway. Next, a school of Slime-Sharks burst through, followed by several twenty-foot-wide Gulf Nettles, their milky orb-heads oscillating above even longer barbed tentacles. An excited breath caught in the sentry’s chest when, in an instant, an immature Gorge-Worm was siphoned through—nearly a quarter of a mile long. Thousands of Conscripts surrounding the pit cheered at this astonishing evidence. The massive, gilled parasite churned in the shallow Blood-water, sidewinding like a snake in a shallow pool.
It was spectacular to behold.
The inflow continued to roar. Above, Dentata-Vultures and Caco-Bats flew mad circles over the Reservoir, inflamed by the Bloodwater’s meaty stench. Every so often, they shot straight down into the stew to snatch a buoyant delicacy on which to feed. When one of Favius’s Squad Leader’s—a Conscript Third Class named Terrod—approached, his armored hand extended to point into the rising gush.
“Commander! Praise Satan for this blessing!”
“Glory be to he who was cast out,” Favius replied.
“My heart sings for this great success, Commander, but we are all mystified—”
“As to what?” Favius’s voice grated.
“As to the purpose of this wondrous undertaking.”
“Keep your spirit on your duty, Terrod. Compared to Lucifer and his Hierarchals, we are unworthy to even contemplate such things.”
“Yes, Commander!”
“We exist to receive our orders, which we obey to the death. Just as Judas betrayed Christ, I’m certain that we are but sheep against the greatness of the Morning Star, and therefore incapable of understanding his most unholy plans. It is not for us to muse upon, but only to know that lowly as we are, we are a small part of great black wonders.”
“I sing praises to his wretched name, Commander.” The lower Conscript looked back out of the scarlet churning. “It’s just such a glorious sight that I am beside myself!”
“As am I as well as all of us, good soldier.”
“And—look!” Terrod pointed with urgency. “What might those be, Commander?”
Favius peered through his visor. “Hmmm . . .”
“They appear to be kegs or casks of some kind—”
“Ah, yes,” Favius said, smiling when he recognized what the half dozen floating objects were. They bobbed like corks in the roiling mire. “Jail-Kegs, Terrod. Clearly much flotsam from the Gulf is finding its way here via the Pipeway. A delightful sight, indeed.”
“Jail-Kegs, Commander?”
“For sure. Lucifer’s Department of Injustice has recently embarked on cost-cutting measures. Rather than go to the expense incarcerating Human convicts in prisons, it is now deemed more preferable and efficient to confine them to the Kegs. Surely a Jail-Keg costs less than a physical prison cell.”
“Of course, Commander!”
Favius nodded, still eyeing the adrift casks. “They merely seal the convicts in the Kegs and dump them into the sea, where they can float sightless and immobile forever.”
“An ingenious punishment, sir!”
“Oh, yes—the very idea of it enthralls me.” But when the scream-tinged breeze suddenly picked up, Favius raised a concerned glance to the sky. The black clouds seemed aswirl—and seemed to be turning a pallid green—moving in involutionary patterns; in other words, in sixlike configurations.
“Those cloud movements bother me, Commander,” Terrod said.
“Yes. We must take no chances. Return to your post. A storm may be coming. Bring the rampart to the ready and brace for emergency conditions.”
“Yes, Commander!” Terrod exclaimed and jogged back to his command point, his armor clattering.
The next gust of fetid wind gave Favius a hard shove. He stared up. Yes, a storm is coming, all right—a formidable one . . .
But even when confronted with the threat, he gazed out yet again over the detestable churning inflow of Blood-water and noticed, now, that the level had risen to at least two feet.
Only sixty-four to go, Favius thought.
(II)
This high in the Regimental Balloon Skiff—over 600 feet—not Curwen nor any of his crew could hear the steady sacrifices below on the field. It was the massive putrid wall of the Demonculus’s chest they faced. So close to the creature’s body, the Master Builder could spy details of the miraculous pseudoflesh that composed the thing: like of tar, wet fungus, and putrefactive grave waste all enmeshed together. Curwen could even detect finger ends and teeth in the dread claylike composite, and remnant cartilage from ears long gone to rot, even gallstones and toenails. A dead colossus, Curwen thought, awaiting a glorious Unlife . . .
Indeed. Awaiting a heart.
Smaller ancillary noble-gas balloons had been rigged to the eyehooks of the titan’s chest plate, which had been previously unscrewed and detached by horned Journeymen. Then the plate was allowed to rise high enough to clear the Occultized area of space it had covered.
“We’re ready, Master Builder,” guttered the sloplike voice of the Project Teratologist. He—or it—was a part-Human, part-Ghoul Crossbreed whose brain volume had been doubled with Hexegenically cultured stem cells. This supplement of gray matter was contained by a clear silicon bolus nailed into the Crossbreed’s skull. Another physical addendum existed in the servant’s hands, which were transplants taken quite abruptly from unwitting Human surgeons who’d recently been Condemned.
“Proceed,” Curwen permitted.
“Bring the Auger to bear!”
A pair of goggled Imps advanced, carrying upon their shoulders the aforementioned implement, a Hexed and Incantated manual Auger, which looked like a giant corkscrew. The laborers carefully aligned the tool’s sharpened tip to the X inscribed in the massive thing’s chest. Amid grunts and great exertion, the Imps turned the Auger slowly counterclockwise, each turn sinking the screw deeper into the Demonculus’s chest. As the screw bore in, loops of reeking pseudoflesh shimmied out.