Free A Thousand Fiendish Angels: Stories Inspired By Dante's Inferno by J.F. Penn

Sins of the Flesh

    I left the hysterical housekeeper downstairs with my partner and strode up the wide staircase to the first floor, my feet sinking into the plush carpet, my hand clasping the burnished bronze railing to speed my journey upwards. The call had come in towards the end of our shift and I was keen to assess the scene quickly so I could get out of uniform and into the bar as fast as possible. Since Jeannie had left, I could no longer bear our meager apartment, a constant reminder of the myriad failings of my career and tainted love.  
    As I walked upwards, I felt a pang of jealousy at the riches of this man's kingdom. His smallest closet contained more than everything I own, I thought, as I reached the top of the stairs and paused to catch my breath. But even rich men cannot escape what must come to us all, and affluence means nothing to a corpse.  
    The stink of death reached me as I turned towards a partially open door made of dark oak, intricately carved with symbols of alchemy and superstition. I bent to look closer and found every sign of protection against evil spirits carved there: the inverted horseshoe, the Islamic blue and white charm to ward off the evil eye, and a Catholic saint holding up a cross against Satan's encroachment in his right hand. A Jewish mezuzah of teal Venetian glass was nailed to the doorframe, its Holy verses on parchment scroll denying destructive agents access, according to the promises of Kabbalah mysticism. This man had clearly tried everything to stop supernatural forces from reaching him, but the stench told me that death had crept in here despite his attempts at metaphysical protection.  
    I was no stranger to the dead but now I felt the need for that extra ounce of courage, for a curious dread had taken hold of me, a leaden coldness that spread through my limbs. I thought with longing of the hip flask hidden in the vehicle below, craving the swig of vodka to help me focus my mind on the task ahead. I didn't want to see what was beyond the door, but I crushed down the insidious fear and reached forwards to push it fully open.  
    The door creaked and wind chimes jangled to scare away malicious spirits, the sound bringing an incongruous sense of life to the inert atmosphere. I put my hand to my nose, trying unsuccessfully to mask the foul odor of voided bowels and rotting flesh. My sweeping gaze took in the ornate richness of the room and then the dead body splayed wide on the antique four-poster bed hung with embroidered curtains. On white satin sheets, now hideously stained with bodily fluids, lay a naked man, bulging flesh on a morbidly obese body lying in a vile slush of his own foul emissions. Christopher Faerwald had been a famous author who made millions from his novels, many of them adapted for the big screen, but he hadn't been seen in years. Now I understood how his physical disfigurement had turned him into a recluse, avoiding the public eye.  
    Accustomed to the stink now, I moved closer to the bed to examine the corpse. Flies rose into the air at my approach, swollen from feeding, their buzzing indignant at my interruption of their feast. Every inch of the man's bloated skin was covered with tattooed words. They may have been legible once, when his skin was young and taut, but they had since morphed into grotesque shapes, open vowels that threatened to swallow and sharp consonants, each cut into his flesh. The ink used to inscribe them was a dark crimson stain and I shuddered at the terrible thought that the words were written in his own blood. But surely this must be a fantastical idea awoken by this macabre den, for the walls were covered in crucifixes and painted with pentacles, and ancient holy books were cluttered in piles on the floor. Faerwald had clearly retreated here to fight his own demons, locked into some kind of madness brought about by his own imagination.  
    The man's face was a rictus of horror, a gaping grimace, as if he had witnessed the