Happy Hour in Hell

eighteen: a darkness like death

I STRUGGLED, OF course. Shit, yes, I struggled. I heaved at the chains until every nerve and muscle in my body felt like it was going to burst through my skin, but the links were too heavy and thick even for demon-strength. I tried to pull my hands out through the shackles themselves, but although I tugged until my gray flesh tore against the metal cuffs, in the end I just couldn’t slip them free. If I could have bitten off my own thumbs to make it work I would have—I was that desperate, because I knew that Niloch and his torturer would have me screaming my real name and mission within an hour after starting on me, and then the pain would really begin. But my chains held my hands out at either side of my body, far from my mouth. My legs were free, but my bottom half wasn’t going anywhere without the rest of me.

I was slumped in defeat, exhausted and probably bleeding badly when I heard, or perhaps felt, a whisper of sound in the dark cell.

“. . . And may his every work come undone, and the stink of his shame follow him wherever he goes.”

“Who’s there?” I’ll leave out the pathetic quaver in my voice. “Who said that?”

After a moment of charged silence I heard it again, a little louder this time. “You . . . you can hear me?” The voice was female, or seemed to be, but of course you can’t trust anything in Hell.

“Who are you?” I asked. “Where are you?” Was it another prisoner in a connecting cell? Or just another torment, although more subtle than most of what Niloch had shown so far?

“Who am I? Now there’s a question.” I could almost smell her sour amusement. “When I was, I was Heartspider, the commissar’s favorite.” Again the impression of a laugh, bitter and not altogether sane. “But there have been several favorites since me. If you look around, you’ll see what’s left of them.”

“I can’t see. It’s too dark.”

“Not much left of them anyway. Piles of bones in the corner. Picked clean, for the most part. Niloch’s sticky little torturer gets what’s left, but he’s a messy housekeeper.”

I didn’t want to think about the bones. “But you? Where are you?”

“One of the piles.”

It took me a moment, but then I understood. “You’re . . . you’re dead.”

“Nobody dies here, you poor fool. If they ever cleaned up I could at least go on to do my suffering elsewhere, but instead I’ve been trapped in this place for longer than I can remember.”

A ghost. She was a ghost, or at least the closest thing to it I’d encountered in Hell, her body ruined, all but destroyed, but her soul or spirit still haunting the place where she’d been butchered. And the Sollyhull Sisters thought they had it bad because they were stuck with coffee shops!

“Can you help me?” I asked her. “If you do, I’ll help you.”

“There’s nothing I can do for you.” A long pause this time. “How? How could you help me?”

“You tell me. If I was free, I could carry your bones away from here. Would that help?”

“It might.” For a brief moment I thought I could hear something new in the disembodied voice, but when she spoke it was flat and hopeless again. “But it doesn’t matter. I can’t bring you the key. I can’t command a slave to release you. By my sweet Satan, do you think I’d still be here if I had any power to do anything?” A gust of fury blew through the room, a hatred so intense I could feel it. “I would have made Niloch my own prisoner long ago if I could. I would burn him every day with fire ’til his little red eyes sizzled and popped. I would bind him until his own horns curled back through his flesh. I would tear him and salt him. I would suck his balls out of his vent and chew them like grapes . . .”

My chains rattled as I slumped back against the wall. I shared her hatred; one thing about being trapped in Hell, I was definitely finding it easier to hate. But it did neither of us any good.

Heartspider wore down at last, trailing into whispers. For a long time neither of us spoke. My mind was racing, but like a rat in a maze, each turn led to another dead end.

“The floor,” she said suddenly.

I stirred. “What?”

“The floor. I watched you nearly manage to pull your hands out of the shackles. The floor is slippery with blood and fat. Far more than just my own. A dozen or more after me have been dispatched here and the slaves have not washed it down.”

“So?”

“Try to get some of it onto your wrists. Maybe then you can slip loose.”

I was about to tell her that I could not reach the floor, not nearly, when I realized that I was standing an inch deep in the very muck she was talking about. I lifted my foot as far as I could and heard a dollop of something unpleasant drip from my toes and splatter the floor. I tried again and managed to bend my knee and lift my foot as high as my own waist, but it was still far from my shackles. I twitched, trying to fling the stuff at my wrists, and felt it splash across my chest and shoulder. I tried again. And again.

I don’t know how much later it was when the bolt rattled and the door swung inward, but I had been in complete darkness so long that the light of a single torch was blinding. Bells jingled softly. It was Niloch’s torturer—sorry, “jester”—Greenteeth. The warty thing lurched closer to examine me, its mouth full of poisonous sharpness like a Viet Cong pit trap. The jester was short, but its stunted arms and legs were heavy as a gorilla’s, and though it scarcely topped my waist I had no doubt that Greenteeth outweighed me. I gripped the manacles in my aching hands and wondered when it would notice they weren’t around my wrists any longer.

“Ready, you?” it asked in a disturbingly wet voice. I still couldn’t make out any eyes, but I could tell it was examining me, especially my bloody arms, pawing at my skin and tasting its cold, knobby fingers. “Trying to get free? Of course, of course, but not too much hurt things. Will spoil the music of what soon we do.” It reached out a hand so it could stroke my chest. Even with all the pain I was already in, the clammy touch of the thing made me shudder and flinch backward. “Oh, no. No fear. Together we will work for goodness. Together we will make something wonderful, quite.”

Then Greenteeth finally noticed that I had slipped my cuffs and was only holding them. Still no eyes, but the toothy mouth gaped in surprise. I didn’t give the horror time to raise the alarm, but kicked as hard as I could where I thought it might be vulnerable, somewhere between the legs and the chest. It dropped the torch, which guttered but did not go out, and as it stumbled and fell onto its back, wheezing with what I hoped was severe, crippling pain, I jumped onto it with both feet, then proceeded to leap up and down as hard as I could, paying no attention to the sensation of bones cracking beneath my heels because I had no idea how strong the thing might be. When the body got too slippery for me to maintain my balance I stepped down and started kicking, working its head and chest.

“He won’t hurt you now,” said Heartspider at last. She sounded like she’d enjoyed what had just happened. “Won’t hurt anything, not for a long time.”

But there was a frenzied anger in me that wouldn’t let go, and I kicked the rubbery, broken thing another half dozen times, seeing dim sprays of fluid in the half-light and liking the way they looked. When I stopped I was gasping, and my heart beat like a stamping press set on high, but all I wanted to do was kick the nasty thing some more. Hell was definitely getting to me.

I found the key on its belt, along with a string of little bells and enough sharp objects to get an entire street gang thrown in jail. I wiped scum off the torch until it burned brightly again, and at Heartspider’s direction I gathered up her bones, still ribboned with leathery shreds of flesh. I had nothing to carry them in, but I found some rags stiff with old blood and tied them into a hobo’s bindle, then slung it over my shoulder. The bones clicked against each other as I made my way out into the dark corridor. I swear, they sounded happy.

Heartspider spoke into my ear, making me jump. “If only we could give Niloch the same, but he is too strong for you.”

I had no urge to encounter my host again. “Just tell me where to go. How do I get out?”

“Down. Like most lordlings in Hell, the Commissar of Wings and Claws has many ways in and out of his lair. Down where the boilers are. Down.”

I let her guide me downstairs and across several basement floors. Even in the middle of the infernal night, there were sounds coming from behind doors that made me pray—yes, pray—that I never had to see what was on the other side. The place was a maze, and by the time we found our way down to what Heartspider told me was the lowest level, I was certain that Niloch or his slaves must have noticed the mess I’d left behind, especially because most of it had been his beloved jester.

The bottom room was more like the Roman catacombs, endless arches of heavy stone and gigantic pipes that looked like they might have been made of fired clay, lit by the kind of globe lights I had seen in the entry hall. It looked almost ordinary, like the underbelly of a subway station or some other bit of urban architecture, except for the bulging pipes, and the curses written on the wall by slaves or prisoners in their own blood.

“The breath of the underworld,” Heartspider said when I asked her what the pipes carried. “It fires the lights and Niloch’s machines.”

Which must be the volcanic gas he’d bragged about, the endless supply that had helped make the commissar a powerful lord in these central realms of Hell.

I could hear noises drifting down from above now, voices shouting and the slap of feet. I knew I didn’t have long, so I let Heartspider guide me through the maze of tunnels and pipes. Unfortunately, she didn’t know the bottom level all that well, so I spent as much time retracing my steps as going forward, and each moment I got more nervous. Niloch must be searching the house, and how long before a party would be sent down here? The distances between lights was growing longer; if I hadn’t had the torch I would have never found my way.

“There!” Heartspider told me as we rounded a corner. At the end of the passage a ladder of ancient wood led upward into a vertical tunnel. “That passage leads up to the gardens. From there you can find a way off Niloch’s land and burn my bones. Then I’ll be free to begin again.”

Heartspider’s words had given me an idea. I searched the floor until I found a piece of loose stone, then stretched up as high as I could and smashed the shining globe at the end of the corridor. I ran back up the passage and quickly smashed a dozen more.

“What are you doing?” Heartspider demanded. “Niloch will be out with his hunting birds in a moment. They’ll shred you with their iron beaks. You can’t wait. You must get me off his land, or I will never be free!”

I could hear the gas hissing out of the broken lights as I ran back. This wouldn’t be the fancy kind of gas that had a smell, but I was pretty sure it could damage me, so I hurried to the ladder and started climbing. At the top I found my way blocked by a rusted iron hatch, but the thing hadn’t been all the way closed and I was able to force it open, although not without doing more damage to my already torn and bloodied demon body. When I climbed out into the relative brightness of the lit garden, I pushed the lid down again and sat on it. I could hear excited noises from Gravejaw House a short distance away, so I knew I didn’t have long, but despite Heartspider hissing and snarling in my ear, I waited.

“He’ll come! He’ll find you! His dogs will chew your bones—and mine!”

I ignored her. She raged at me, but I wouldn’t move.

“You fool! What are you doing? Do you have any idea . . . ?”

Somewhere just out of my sight I heard the great front doors creak as someone began to draw the bolt, which probably meant Niloch had finished searching the house, or at least had decided it was unlikely I was still inside. Any moment now he would come riding out with slaves and soldiers and his iron-mouthed birds, whatever kind of horror those were.

“You traitor! You are dooming yourself, too!”

Even as Heartspider’s voice rose to a pitch of despair I felt sure the commissar would be able to hear, I turned and yanked the hatch back open. It screeched as rusty metal rubbed on metal, resisting me, but I only had to get it up just a little way. I pushed the torch through and forced the hatch closed again, then started to run across the stony garden, heading for the shelter of a copse of petrified trees.

The ground shook. For a moment, the grounds in front of me were illuminated by a gust of fiery light as the burning gas forced its way out of the hatch, blowing the metal lid through the air like a communion wafer in a tornado. It almost hit me as it came down, digging deep into the ground, then a roll of thunder shook the ground again, and Gravejaw House vomited fire from half its windows.

Heartspider had been too stunned to speak, but as I crept back toward the hatch she began to beg me not to waste this chance. I’m not even sure she knew that I had caused the explosion. The flames were licking up from the tunnel as though the whole of the catacombs were on fire. The ground boomed and shook beneath me. When I steadied myself again I saw that one of the walls of Gravejaw House was toppling in an avalanche of old stone. I could hear a few screams from the part of the house still standing. Heartspider was right: I really didn’t want to hang out there very long.

I took the bundle of her bones from my shoulder and tossed it into the hatch. Heartspider’s voice shrieked in my ears. “Traitor! Traitor! I put my curse on—” And then she fell silent as the bones ticked down the hatchway tunnel into the inferno below, and she realized what was happening.

“Ah!” she gasped, like a drowning woman who had finally broken the surface. And then, as baking heat scorched her last remains to ash, she was gone.

“Yes, I did it,” I said, although I was talking only to myself now. “After all, a deal is a deal.”

As I made my way across the grounds curious bystanders flocked into the gardens and toward the commissar’s castle, staring in awe at the pillar of fire currently towering above Gravejaw House, demon spectators mostly. Tellingly, not a single one seemed to be there to help, but stood watching as Niloch’s slaves struggled against the hungry blaze. Of the slaves’ owner there was no sign, and I wasn’t going to wait around to see if the commissar had survived. I sort of doubted you could kill one of Hell’s nobles with fire, anyway. The problem was, so many damned and demons were milling around that someone was bound to remember me when Niloch came thundering out after revenge.

One of the spectators, a creature with the discolored head of a pig set on the long body of an NBA shooting guard, followed me as I tried to make my way discreetly through the outskirts of the crowd.

“You there!” he said. “Slave! Stop or I’ll have you skinned.” My dirty, scorched, bloody nakedness was disguise enough, it seemed, at least with this idiot. But seeing him standing there in his long black robe gave me another idea. “How is our beloved commissar?” he demanded. “Is he safe? You must tell him that his loyal tradesman, Trotter, asked after his health.”

I nodded eagerly and beckoned for him to follow me. He fell in behind, perhaps hoping to be led to the commissar himself so he could get in a little timely ass-kissing. When we were out of sight of the rest of the onlookers I hurried through the winding gardens. The skeletonized shrubs were weeping, trying helplessly to shake falling embers off their leaves. When we reached the hatch I did my best to ignore the hot metal against my torn skin as I got close. The flames had retreated, but not far, and the hot air that rushed up from the pipe felt like it blistered my skin.

“See,” I said. “See, Master, see!”

Trotter stepped forward, curiosity fighting caution, and stood a little way back from the pipe, craning his piggy head forward on the end of his long neck in an attempt to see. I leaned out over the hatch as if the agonizing heat wasn’t hurting me, and beckoned again. “Look!”

When he had leaned far enough, I shoved him down with enough force to crush his windpipe against the rim of the pipe. As he fought for breath, I slammed his head over and over against the edge of the hatch until he stopped struggling, then peeled off his robe with bloody, ragged fingers. Trotter’s body was as gray and knobby and unpleasant as I would have expected. I suppose I should have felt sorry for him or bad about myself, since I had just murdered him in cold blood and everything (well, horribly crippled him, since no one died in Hell) but I didn’t. I didn’t have enough me left. All I knew was that I had to get out of Gravejaw and up the great lifter. I no longer had only to reach Pandaemonium and accomplish my business without being caught, although it would be a hundred times harder now that Hell would be looking for an outsider on the loose. No, it was crystal-clear that I had to find Caz and get out of this place of unending horrors before I went truly and finally mad.