ALL THE LOVE NORTH OF HELL
PROLOGUE
Mother Night had a daughter and a son. Dream and Death and the two have always been at war. There is a world between them, a borderland where we walk and sail the seas of Fate. Name is Jack Hell, private eye and pirate captain of the Dreamship Brightrazor.
I am a Namer. A wizard of sorts. I know the true names of scars, locks, doors, and blades. I got a face of 40 miles of bad road and a sword form smooth as Johnny Walker blue, with just enough burn to make you remember. I’m big but lanky, hair of amber and eyes with blues so deep Ella Fitzgerald would weep. I have a smile that would make the devil himself think twice.
I am putting a crew together. All women, I’m calling them Hell’s Belles. We are going to spite some demons and slay some dragons. But first you got to learn the true magic of names and walk through people’s nightmares. The timid need not apply. So if you see me in your dreams. I’ll be the least of your nightmares. I’ll be the scary guy in black. I’ll be at the edge just beyond the door. I’ll be fighting what scares you most.
There are two types of people in this world. The dreaming and the dead. I’m both. I walk and sail the borders between. I was born to the tapping of keys, not a piano. A typewriter. The ribbon raised, plummeted and pummeled the white plane of the page. My skin. I’d tell you who my father was. But you wouldn’t know him. Former pinkerton. Former rumrunner, former soldier, he was always a former something. He was obscure as a polite inadequate simile. That’s pretty fucking unremarkable. The night after the war ended. He was writing. Trying to get as many words for pennies that he could. There was tobacco, whiskey and maybe food to buy. He was cold – he survived the great war, saw a second one. This was the second time he fought the Germans. Even after being burned a taking in a bit of gas in war one. He volunteers for the second looking for a good death. He comes back from D day a lunger walking with a cane.
Name’s Jack Hell, which was an unfortunate accident of birth. I look like Hammet’s Blonde Satan. He was my inspiration when the pulp author that created me ate a gun and in that blood sacrifice gave me life. His hell was my salvation. I was just words on a page then. But the curses of the dying and names have a lot of power. I am a namer. You name something you have power over it. Names are petty little gods. I have four. Blades, Scars, Doors and Locks. The fewer names to more control. You can know a thousand true names and that of fire and you could barely light a smoke. But if you only knew the name of fire. Oh what you could burn.
I fight demons that haunt people’s dreams. I got a good crew. My girls – Hell’s Belles. And we have a job tonight.
I won the dreamship Brightrazor in a card game, well won is a euphemism. I caught the owner dealing from the bottom of the deck and buried a shadow sword into his eye. The cheating prick fell ass over teakettle in his chair. The blade evaporated in the light. It was a gentleman’s game. But we were one gentleman short. It was a quick clean thrust, from I shadow sheath I keep for these occasions. The pupil widened just as it struck home. I always keep shadows near me. So I can pull out a black blade from the scar as I need it.
The borderlands between the dreaming and the dead can be rough places. I had a few platinum ovals on a string around my neck. I’ll give them to my barkeep. For the bloody mess I leave him. The dogs will eat well tonight.
“ Sorry Larry” I says as I throw the oval “eyes” at him. He takes the coins and shakes his head. He’s a gargoyle of a man. Stone faced big as a mountain and half as mobile. Ashen skin that makes him look like he should be perched upon a cathedral. The skin pocked from a battle with small box as a boy.
“ S’alright “ He says to me as I walk out onto 13th avenue. NYC. The dream invasion happened 10 years ago. The demons overran the borders and they started to terror form the world. A world of fear. Well fear and dancing. “ Give the girls my love…” The slate colored man says as I walk out. “ You can always try to give your love to them in person.” I says in return. “ You’ve met me right?” he says with a sarcastic acceptance.
I always tried to explain my relationship with pain. I hit for a living, I fight I dwell and I deceive with a cunning blur and silver flash, too much pain have I caused and felt , through a wry smile and deliberate sad eyes. I give you, deduce, empathize, seduce, intimidate, reduce, extrapolate - D.E.S.I.R.E is the code of interrogation, the sword is the hand, the knife, the stick and the soul. And with love I would take all your pain, I can take it. Just for the one sincere moment of surrender. For the briefest moment of tenderness. I will swallow oceans of your pain with a smile.
The other wayfarer dreamship captains ask me – Why do you only have women on your crew. The answer is simple and self serving. I love women. All women are perfection. Its was written into my code. They are my weakness. The best way to build up an immunity to poison is to take a little each day.
Secondly and almost as important as dream knights they have a much better sense of the flow of a dream. They have better intuition. Their minds tend to be less rigid. They don’t tend to get as distracted. They also as fighters have a few distinct advantages. Many tend to be faster and have more stamina. They bear children after all. They’re the brains. I’m the muscle.
I can only sail the seas of dream. I can’t walk in the real world. But my lovelies can. I was a pulp creature of the 1890’s. Women couldn’t vote, they had to exert a different kind of power. The right person will always find my ladies.. There will be a nightmare that needs a good killing. Then we go in.
You got that all straight? – Good – let’s begin
