Free The Devil's Evidence by Simon Kurt Unsworth Page A

“Now, shall we get on?”

5
    There were three of them, two older demons and one scurrying thing that Fool assumed would be little more than scribe and general servant.
    “This is the Delegation,” said Rhakshasas, “and you will serve them during your time in Heaven.”
    They were in one of the smaller rooms in Assemblies House, the central hub of the Bureaucracy’s functioning in Hell. The first of the demons was apparently made entirely of larvae, a human-shaped figure that constantly writhed, maggots falling from it and crawling back into the mass in an ongoing stream. It had no face, but there were impressions where mouth and eyes should be in the thing that might have been a head atop its boiling, wriggling shoulders. It was, disconcertingly, wearing a cape that flapped and a hat that even when it was still rocked because of the movement of its maggot flesh.
    The other was worse.
    It was as though someone had stitched together the remains of hundreds of dead animals, all rotten, so that the flesh dripped and slithered and bones showed through the mess of it. Its head might have once been a dog’s, its chest the remains of a bird, ribs exposed and covered in ragged feathers, arms long and spindly but ending in pads from which claws extended and retracted. It had no eyeballs, only weeping sockets that contained glittering red sparks in their depths, and its lips were torn and hanging, revealing teeth that were uneven and yellow. It wore an old suit, dusty where it wasn’t wet with slime and filth, buttoned closed beneath the collapsing rib cage but too small, so that in the gap between trousers and jacket more rotten flesh was visible. Its feet were bird’s feet, long-toed, mostly bone and leather. Neither was introduced to him by name.
    They’re sending the worst of Hell,
thought Fool,
the most grotesque. This is about the look of things as much as the content. This is about the face we show in the trades, in the making of deals between Heaven and Hell, the appearance we decide upon and the way it makes those that look upon us feel. This is about how we make ourselves appear fearsome and fierce and
hellish
so we can get the things we want. This is the business of Bureaucracy.
    He glanced down at the new uniform Rhakshasas had given him, a black suit and shirt that fit him well and soft leather boots, the first footwear in Hell that Fool had possessed that was comfortable. They had dressed him up, too, a doll to make the Delegation look good; the jacket was long so that it moved when he did, swirling like wings, and the suit and shirt were made of soft material that seemed to absorb the light. Wearing it made him feel like a shadow.
    Fool the shade,
he thought,
little foolish shade.
They had made him into something new, something to present to Heaven, not an Elevated soul but a servant one, a part of Hell sent forth to barter and deal. He fingered the edge of the jacket, hand pale against the dark fabric, and felt even more like a ghost, not the Thomas Fool he had come to know over these last weeks and months but something new and unknown.
    “We are almost ready,” said Rhakshasas, “are we not?”
    “Yes,” said the stitch demon, its voice bubbling and wet. This was the Delegation’s leader, the one through whom the trades would be finalized. Discolored saliva fell from its mouth as it spoke, dripping to its chest and adding to the stains that covered its suit. It inclined its head toward Fool and said, “Does it know its position?”
    “Behind you,” said Fool. “Serving you. Doing your bidding.”
    “Good,” said the thing, more foul liquid spattering out as it spoke. The other watched silently, pieces of it falling, hitting the floor, and crawling eagerly back to their host.
    “Thomas is an obedient servant,” said Rhakshasas, coming close to Fool. “He is the first of Hell’s humans to be sent to Heaven without being Elevated, the first and possibly the last. He will serve us without