Horror novella by Nathan Ballingrud. It was originally included in Ballingrud's "Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell," a horror anthology published by Gallery/Saga Press in 2019.
The major theme running through Ballingrud's "Wounds" collection is, as you'd suspect from the subtitle, Hell, and Ballingrud's uniquely disturbing vision of the creatures and tools of that realm. In "The Atlas of Hell," a schmuck in debt to a mob boss has to venture into the Louisiana swamp to retrieve the title artifact, a skull inside a damaged iron box that constantly pumps out body horror and violently bad vibes. In "The Visible Filth," a cell phone lost after a bar fight leads the bartender to a video of a strange tunnel, a book called "The Second Translation of Wounds," possession, and a twisted method for summoning angels. In "The Maw," two people make a dangerous journey into a chunk of a city taken over by Hell, all in search of a lost dog.
And the final story of the six, "The Butcher's Table," set at some point during the Golden Age of Piracy over the 1600-1700s. We follow a group of unusual characters -- Martin Dunwood, a representative of a secret society, preparing for a meeting with a rival but related society governed by Mr. Abel Cobb (and his lovely daughter Alice), and they plan a journey by ship to a distant locale where they'll dine together, hopefully with an honored guest.
Not unusual enough? Let's expand a bit. Martin Dunwood is the last surviving member (because he killed everyone else) of the Candlelight Society, an organization dedicated to the worship of Satan. Abel Cobb is the leader of the Buried Church, another and much stronger Satanic church, with cannibalism as their preferred act of worship. Alice Cobb is also a dedicated Satanist, and she and Dunwood are in love -- or at least in depraved lust -- and her father would kill Dunwood if he found out. The ship they'll travel on is the Butcher's Table, stuffed to its gills with some of the worst -- but oddly honorable -- pirates to ever sail the seas. And their destination is Hell, where they intend to kill and eat a human and dine with Satan Himself -- with Dunwood and Alice hoping to have the Burning Prince preside over their wedding.
And there are plenty more wonderful and horrible characters: Captain Toussaint, master of the Butcher's Table, a fiendishly clever and ruthless pirate who knows better than to trust Satanists, but his secret heart is waiting for him on the other side of Hell's terrible seas; Rufus Gully, Dunwood's loathsome bodyguard, a brute with very strange appetites, a foolish man who is stronger willed than Dunwood anticipates; Bonny Mungo, another pirate who quickly finds himself on the wrong side -- in more ways than one -- of dire spirits pursuing the traveling Satanists; Thomas Thickett, a man who thought he'd found a worthwhile life amongst the scoundrels of the sea -- until he learned he was to be the guest of honor at a diabolical feast.
There are the lotusheads, magical plants whose screams can kill a man and shift a ship from the land of the living to the Black Seas of Hell. There are the carrion angels, not precisely evil but very much not good, who pursue stray lotusheads while sheltered in the fraying, shredded skins of unfortunate humans and the beasts of the deep sea. There are the Black Iron Monks, Hell's cartographers, their heads encased for life inside iron boxes while they bargain the secrets of the damned in exchange for memories of Earth. There's the Black Law, the relentless ships of Hell's secret police.
Much of the early plot of the novella focuses on the schemes of the Satanists and pirates, and their attempts to hide their plans from each other. Dunwood, Cobb, Alice, Toussaint, and Gully all have their own goals, many of which require the deaths of many other people on board the ship, and there's plenty of good fun in watching dreadful people threaten each other.
Once they make their transition to Hell's oceans, things slow down briefly. The Butcher's Table successfully navigates to the designated location of the Feast, preparations are made, bread is broken -- and then the betrayals come out. Then blood gets spilled. Then the Black Law shows up. And things get worse and worse and worse and worse for everyone.
There are a lot of things I love about this novella. I love the plot, which works its way around a lot of different people and situations, and gives everyone just what they need to contribute to this beautiful Hellish disaster. I love the characters and the characterizations. I love the amazing imagination that went into creating these people, these monsters, these settings.
And if I may indulge in spoilers, I really love the audacity -- the absolute fucking audacity -- of creating a story where every single one of the characters, from the most important protagonists to the supporting players to the bit parts and walk-on roles, is a pure, Grade Z, scumbag evil villain (even if some of them are extremely charismatic and likable), and where the only characters who don't die horribly are the ones who survived only because no one can die in Hell. And where, out of all of them, all of these terrible evildoers with their grand ambitions and intricate schemes, only one of them actually gets what he really wants in the end.
I love the eldritch stuffings out of this story, and it turns an already excellent book like "Wounds" into an absolute must-get. Buy it, borrow it from your library, but whatever you do, read it.
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