For Heaven's Eyes Only by Simon R. Green

headed for the door to the stairwell. I insisted on going first. I stood before the door for a few moments, looking it over carefully and checking for any new surprises, and then slammed it open with one heave from my armoured shoulder. The door slammed back against the inside wall, making a hell of a din that echoed down the long stairwell. There was nothing obviously dangerous waiting, so I started down the rough cement steps, with Molly and Isabella close behind. I didn’t hear any sounds of pursuit, which rather worried me. If they weren’t coming after us, it could only be because they didn’t need to. Because something was waiting for us.
    We made it down the first few floors without incident, the only sound that of our feet pounding on the bare steps. And then I stopped and held my hand up for silence. We stood and listened, and from below came the sound of feet ascending the stairs. There was something not quite right about the sound. Flat, unhurried, almost shuffling. And not a word, not a human voice, to accompany them. The Satanists we’d encountered before hadn’t been at all diffident about expressing themselves. I leaned out over the drop and peered down the stairwell. And up the stairs came twenty or thirty naked men and women.
    I looked at Molly. “Why are they wearing no clothes? I don’t think I like the idea of being attacked by naked people. I mean, satanic nudists? What’s that all about?”
    “You don’t get it, Eddie,” said Molly, not even smiling. “They’re not wearing clothes because they don’t need any. They’re dead. They’re all dead.”
    I leaned out and looked again. They were closer now, close enough for me to see the terrible wounds that had killed them. Great holes in their chests from where their hearts had been ripped out. Ragged nubs of bone protruded from the gaping wounds, and long streaks of dried blood crusted their pale grey torsos. Their faces were blank and staring, their eyes unblinking. They were dead, and they were coming for us.
    “These are what’s left over from human sacrifices,” said Isabella. “Not even zombies, really, because there’s nothing left in them. Just bodies raised up and moved around by an external will. I don’t know why the Satanists kept them. Waste not, want not, I suppose. The raised dead do make excellent shock troops against the living. Very psychologically effective. Shock-and-awe troops, if you like.”
    They were only a floor or so below us now, close enough that I could see other things that had been done to the dead bodies. Some had missing hands; some had no feet and stomped along on what was left of their ankles. Some had no eyes, or teeth, or lips. And all of this had clearly happened before they died.
    “Why do that?” I said.
    “Satanists just want to have fun,” said Isabella.
    I looked at her. “You think this is funny? Torture and mutilation and human sacrifice?”
    Molly put a gentle hand on my arm. I couldn’t feel it, but I could see it. “You know how it is, Eddie. We have to laugh in situations like this, or we’d go mad.”
    “Yes,” I said. “I know. It . . . got to me, for a moment there.”
    “That’s the idea,” said Isabella. “One thing about Satanists; they really know how to push your buttons.”
    “You don’t have to worry about hurting them, Eddie,” said Molly. “There’s no one left inside them to hurt. It’s only . . . bodies.”
    “You take care of them,” I said. “I can’t seem to work up the enthusiasm.”
    “Sure, Eddie,” said Molly. “No problem. You stand back and let the Metcalf sisters get to work.”
    The two witches leaned over the stairwell, chanted something in unison and extended their hands. Great waves of fire burst from their fingertips, gushing blasts of hot yellow flames that shot down the shaft and incinerated the dead bodies coming up. Fire filled the shaft, so hot the air rippled around it and the stairwell walls blackened. There was a brief stench