Sweet Pandemonium

Chapter 2

The dream came again as she rode the long tram up the volcano. She was in a long corridor, in an old building. The walls were barely visible behind piles of treasure; golden bars, marble statues, rare books, cases of jewels, chests overflowing with baubles and trinkets. Yet all of it was cracked, dented, rusted, or faded, moldering away after centuries of neglect. Was it an obvious metaphor for the uselessness of physical riches? Never. There was something much more here, in this dim hall that Ire visited regularly in her dreams. It lay behind a door near the end, a plain wooden thing where a name had once been etched, but had been long ago filed away. Ire knew what lay beyond, which was why she always came back, why she lay her hand on the old brass handle, and why she never dared push it open.


She jumped awake as a clap of thunder rang out, and two old men joined her on the tram, one a largely bald man with a long and wild beard, the other with flyaway hair and a bushy mustache. They both looked familiar, though Ire didn’t care much for the way the mustached one was looking at her. The tram left the waystation, and a trickle of blood and human digits bounced off the roof. A corpse storm was brewing, and the sky went dark.


“I’m seeing her again next week Albert,” the bearded man continued. “Lysandra is absolutely lovely, you’d adore her.” The tram gently wobbled as it continued up the cable, and the rain of human matter intensified. The windows were soon smeared in red, blocking the view of the jagged slopes outside.


“I’m sure I would,” Albert agreed while clearly not listening. “I hope we aren’t disturbing you, young lady. Charles and I are just on our way to Consumption. It’s a small town just a few slopes over and there’s a fine bar there. If you’d like to join us, I’ll buy.”


Ire gave him a small, not-interested smile as a hail of limbs and torsos began pounding the tram, rocking it in every direction as it curved down a low peak and began its final ascent up Terry’s mountain. No one feared the loud slap of flesh on steel overhead or the cable that shook and strained as though it would break. The tram was demon built, and ran in all kinds of weather. “They don’t let me in anymore.”


Albert stroked his mustache. “Oh, I can have a talk with the owner…”


“Not the bar, asshat. The village! I’ve been banned from the village!”


“Don’t talk to my friend like that,” Charles snapped. “Do you have any idea who you’re talking to?” Ire raised an eyebrow at both of these men who looked vaguely familiar. She was fairly certain she could take them both in a fight even if she were missing an arm and an eye, and she had a concussion, while she was on fire. But she wasn’t in the mood for this game, so she pulled out her phone and opened up Army of Nun: a game where you protected your pentagram altar with guillotines, gatling guns, and other tower defenses while nuns tried to fly in and destroy it. Very addictive. Ire gave it nine out of ten.


“Why were you banned from the village!?” Albert shouted. The noise of the corpse storm easily overwhelmed talking volume.


Ire pursed her lips. “I reset the mayor!”


“Ah!” Albert grinned. “Not a fan of authority. Why would you do that?”


“He was a greasy dick who tried hitting on me while I was taking the tram up the mountain.”


“Come now, there’s no call for that,” Charles protested again, his long beard quivered violently. “Albert is one of the kindest men in this Circle! Just last week, he drafted several demons in helping build Consumption a new town hall! The week before…”


“Bullshit!” Ire shouted without looking up from her game.


“I beg your pardon?”


“Bull. Shit.” She enunciated. “Don’t lie. It’s rude.”


“It is absolutely not a lie!”


“Really? Which demons? Name four of them.”


Charles faltered. Ire was relieved that her stop was coming up shortly. It was a very specific hell to be stuck in a blood-soaked tram with two irritating old farts. “That’s all right Charles,” Albert stepped in with a nervous laugh. “Baphomet…”


“He runs the Victorian Orgy. Totally different Circle. Try again.”


“Well… Pazuzu!”


“Hates white people. Would never even look at you.”


Albert blushed. “Croodaz!”


Ire giggled. “You just made that one up, didn’t you? Look,” - she pocketed her phone, her stop was coming up and she was failing at Army of Nun anyway - “I have been putting up with bullshit for a very, very, very, very long time! I know bullshit - both human and supernatural - in and out. Doesn’t matter if it’s exaggerations, omissions, forgeries, careful deceptions, illusions, hallucinations, enchantments, or those little white lies you tell your friends. If it’s made up, I can see through it. You fools are like books to me!”


“What do you know about books!?” the bearded man jumped to his feet, just as a particularly fat and intact corpse cracked against the roof, and the tram recoiled forward, knocking him back in his chair. Ire gripped her seat hard and barely stayed in as their car righted itself. “I have written more bestsellers than you could shake a stick at. I’m a household name for God’s sake!”


“Please say you’re ‘Charles Palahniuk.’ At least that bullshit would be funny.”


“I’m Charles Dickens, you ignorant hussy!”


Ire opened her mouth, then closed it. “...not bullshit,” she conceded. “Damn, Shakespeare told me all about you.”


“Of course it’s not bullshit, I know who I am!” Spit flew from his mouth and landed on Ire’s face. She wiped it away with her sleeve as Albert stayed him with his hand.


“Ignore her,” the mathematician said as he wrapped a friendly arm around the author. “We’ll just go to the bar without her, and meet some lovely women there.


“Yeah Charles,” Ire goaded. “Ignore me. Just pretend I’m your wife.”


Albert had to throw himself over the author to hold him back. “How dare you talk about…! You don’t understand a thing about that, so you keep out of my business, you hear!?” The writer’s bald forehead turned the color of the windows. The car slowed and straightened out, indicating they had reached the peak. The sound of detritus hitting their car abruptly stopped, and the tram lurched to a slow crawl. Ire slid the door open and got out. “Bitch!” Albert yelled after her, and his face clicked in Ire’s head.


Albert Einstein had just called her a bitch. This really was a very, almost suspiciously, good day.


The peak of the mountain was fairly flat and wide, covered by a swath of tundra almost never touched by the elements. Ire walked out of a waystation barely large enough to be called a shed, and started on a dirt path towards a humble ranch house on the edge of the cliff. A windmill next to it spun wildly, as the maroon thunderhead of the corpse storm rolled away. From here, Ire could see the worst had passed them entirely. The flashing cathedral clouds were some of the worst she’d seen in years, and looked to be gathering strength.