Happy Hour in Hell

twenty-three: a long night at the opera

CAYM APPROACHED with a grin on his beaked face like the cat that ate the canary—except in his case it would have been the canary who ate the cat. My heart was pounding, and if hell-creature bodies could sweat I would have been dripping like a melting popsicle. I had only a couple of seconds to decide whether to run or stand my ground. If the grand president and his entourage hadn’t been between me and the front door I probably would have bolted, but I had already discovered that the rest of the sprawling house was a maze that I couldn’t navigate even with a compass, so I took a deep breath and waited.

Caym took his eyes off me long enough to bend his long, skinny body and kiss Elizabeth’s hands, then he did the same for Vera.

“It’s so kind of you to grace us with your presence, your Honor,” Elizabeth said. She sounded like she meant it, breathless and pleased.

“It’s always a pleasure to visit your splendid residence, Countess,” he said, which was the first time I’d heard any of the guests give Elizabeth that title, and it reminded me of Caz, my own Countess, captive somewhere in this mad city. “And Lady Zinc, what a sublime thrill it is to see you again as well.”

Vera colored quite charmingly. She seemed more impressed by the president even than Elizabeth had been. “I’m flattered you remember me, my lord.”

“Caym, please. These are my leisure hours.” And then he straightened and turned to me, his wet, bright eyes flicking up and down as if I were a tasty bit of roadkill he was examining from a convenient height. “And you must be Vera’s guest. Snakestaff, is it not? When last we met she could speak of nothing else.”

“Oh! You have such a good memory, Grand President!” She turned to me. “It was the night we found you in the road.”

“Knocked him down is what you told me.” The grand president made a merry, flirtatious face, particularly horrible on his bony, exaggerated features, like some kind of exotic tribal mask. “And please, Lady Zinc, I do not wish to keep correcting you, but you must call me Caym.”

As Vera made fluttering little sounds of agreement, the president turned back to me. I was just beginning to relax. Apparently he had been looking at me only because Vera had mentioned me.

“But now that I see you up close, sir,” he said, “I find that there is something familiar about you.” He might as well have reached into my chest and squeezed my heart. “Is it possible we have met before?”

“Ah! Ah, I mean, no, no—I don’t think so.” I felt as if everyone within twenty yards was staring at me. “I come to the Red City so seldom. The most of my business is . . . is in Perdition Valley, several levels down.”

“A lovely little province,” said Caym in a pleasant tone that suggested he’d never heard of the place. “Well, there are several of your guests that I would like to greet, Countess, including your husband who I see over there plotting some mischief with that old villain Pope Sergius, so I hope you will forgive me if I drag myself away from your far more charming company. This may be my evening for recreation, but I still cannot ignore my duties.” As Elizabeth and Vera gushed, the crowlike figure turned away, then stopped and turned back. “You know, Countess, I am sponsoring an evening at the Dionysus two nights from now, that grand bit of Monteverdi we all love. It should be quite an event—Himself is going to take the leading role in the opera, of course.” You could practically hear the capital “H.”

Himself? For a moment I had an absurd vision of Satan all decked out in a Valkyrie outfit, singing an aria. That seemed unlikely, but both Elizabeth and Vera gave out muffled shrieks of glee, as though Caym had said something deliciously naughty. “Is he really?” Vera asked. “What fun!”

“Yes, and I would be honored if you ladies would be my guests. And bring your gentlemen, of course.” He sketched a little bow toward me. “I humbly suspect the evening’s entertainment will be the talk of the Red City.”

On the way home Vera was as happy as a teenager who’d just found out she was going to be on some MTV reality show, bubbling about what an honor it was that Caym should remember her, and how astonishing it was that the grand president had asked us to be his theater guests.

“What did he mean, ‘Himself’? Who’s going to be playing the lead?”

“Never mind.” She was being coquettish. “You’ll see. It will be delicious. But let’s talk about you, you lovely, darling man. You impressed the president so! He’s not like us, of course. Most of the old ones don’t have our . . . urges. But he clearly thought a great deal of you. Wondering if you’d met! But you haven’t ever met him before, have you, darling? You’d tell me if you truly knew him, wouldn’t you? A president!”

By the way, there’s not just one president at a time in Hell like in the U.S. It’s merely a title, but it’s a pretty oomphy one. I’ve only heard of about three or four other demons, all original Fallen, who have that in their resume, so in a way it’s actually a lot more exclusive than being the guy in the White House.

Anyway, Vera was in a very cheerful mood. Once I’d gotten undressed for bed and had donned that Dickensian nightdress, she came into my room, still dressed in her party finery, and insisted on going over all the exciting events of the night, the people she’d seen and the astonishing things she’d heard. Of course, Caym’s invitation was the crown jewel and thus required lots of consideration. She sat on the bed beside me, her on top of the covers, me under them. The servant Belle was in the room too, waiting to help her mistress get ready for bed. As Vera talked and gently stroked my hair I felt a strong fondness for her, the last thing I had expected to feel for anyone or anything here. It was sexy, too, in a weird way, the old-fashioned clothes and the old-fashioned manners. Vera was pretty as a porcelain doll, girlish in her enthusiasms, and like Caz, could have passed for human (and a very attractive human at that) anywhere on Earth. She seemed to like me very much, and I couldn’t ignore that either. Just the feeling of her fingers trailing through my hair made me sleepy and content, comfortable in a way I rarely felt on Earth or even in Heaven. But there was nothing more in it for me than that, I swear. I admired her, I was grateful to her, and I couldn’t help but acknowledge that she was very, very attractive, but I already had one demon-girlfriend, and look where that had gotten me. More than that, Caz had grown so big inside of me since our first night together that there truly wasn’t much room for anyone else.

But Vera had been good to me. I reached up to squeeze her hand. For a moment I thought I felt something strange when I touched her, something hard and sharp, and we both jumped a little, but by the time we had recovered, laughing, I realized that it must have been the tips of her fingernails, which she kept long and perfectly trimmed and polished.

“Oh, but here I have gone on and on!” she said. “You must be exhausted, my dear. Belle, come and help me out of these clothes. I shall not bathe tonight; I am too tired and too excited. I think I shall just crawl into bed naked.”

She and the tall servant went out, leaving me alone to think about that interesting image, but I was suddenly so exhausted that I fell asleep within moments after the door closed behind them.

The strange days of my official citizenship in the Red City slipped by. Snakestaff might be an unimportant minor demon of the Liars Sect, a sort of small town lawyer compared to the sharpies I had faced as Doloriel, Heavenly Advocate, but now, Snakestaff and I had been whirled into the heart of society, or at least the damned version of the idle rich.

It wasn’t easy to make sense of the way Hell worked, because everything here seemed as bizarre and chaotic as Heaven was ordered and seemingly unchanging. It was clear to me at least that Vera was not exactly at the heart of things. Her friends Elizabeth and Francis were much bigger players than she was, but she was an enthusiastic participant, an infernal social butterfly with a love for the trappings and protocols of her lost earthly life. She took me to various gatherings, and although I met some truly hideous people (and I’m using the term “people” very loosely here) I met others who, except for their appearance, wouldn’t have been out of place at any smart gathering. Many of the damned and demonic were funny, colorful, even charming (in a don’t-turn-your-back-on-them sort of way).

I was often referred to as “Vera’s new man,” although nothing definitively romantic had passed between us. Sometimes I was “Vera’s discovery,” as though my clodhopping, lower-level ways revealed Lady Zinc’s cleverness, or at least her open-mindedness. A few in her social set were openly hostile to me, mostly the kind of young (or young-appearing) males who probably would have liked to be in my place, but that was just another interesting facet of what was a truly rich and complex society. In fact, I was beginning to find myself almost comfortable in Hell, which terrifies me now and should have terrified me then, but a weird kind of contentment had gripped me. There were times, especially as Vera sat on my bed at night stroking my hair and murmuring to me, that I could scarcely remember the earlier part of my journey, let alone my angel life on Earth.

Only thoughts of Caz kept me grounded at all. Every time I found myself relaxing into the comfortable companionship of those I knew must be murderers and thieves of the worst kind, I remembered her pale face and a chill of guilt brought me back to myself, at least for a moment. Eligor was out there—I heard him mentioned occasionally in breathless tones, as if he was a rock star who lived nearby—which meant Caz had to be out there too, somewhere, even though I would probably never meet her by accident in a city this big. But there were other times when I could hardly feel her at all, could hardly feel anything except the warm contentment of being safe and being admired. Things were looking up, after all. My hand was growing back; new finger bones had sprouted, growing out of my wrist stump like early cornstalks. But mostly I just liked being safe. I had been hunted and haunted for a long time now, and not just in Hell.

The night of the opera came. After I got dressed in my Prince Albert finery I waited a long time for Vera who, unsurprisingly, wanted her appearance to be perfect. She settled at last on a sumptuous red velvet dress with a low neckline that showed off her full, almost exuberant figure. After I had complimented her as extravagantly as I knew how (I still wasn’t quite comfortable with what felt to me like intentionally old-fashioned ways of talking and acting) Henri brought the car and we were off to the theater.

Pandaemonium no longer seemed like it had when I first arrived, bleeding and near death. It was still dark and grotesque, but now it seemed more like one of those foreign cities you encounter in spy stories, like Cold War Berlin or Bogart’s Casablanca, full of terrible danger, yes, but also full of excitement and possibility. Did that mean I could overlook the monsters in the streets just because I traveled in safety? Overlook the terrible suffering, worse than you could find in the most desperate third-world capital?

Yes, to an extent. I was already beginning to feel like I’d do anything to avoid the horror of being cast out to wander Hell again without allies or protection, forget my principles if I had to, forget my angelic training, forget almost everything. It sneaks up on you that way. But I still couldn’t forget Caz, no matter what else happened. I’m not exaggerating when I say that she was the only thing that kept me from tumbling into the abyss.

I’d guessed that the Dionysus Theater would be like La Scala or something, one of those fancy opera places, a big classical building with columns, meant to proclaim, “Hey, we got culture!” but I was reckoning without Hell’s sense of humor. The theater was a few blocks off Dis Pater Square, tucked in at the end of a wide street full of strange, misshapen buildings, not the high towers of the wealthy but the hivelike habitations that the rest of Pandaemonium’s residents fought to get into, with their bottom floors given over to small shops and other businesses. But the joke, I realized when I saw the electrical sign with its vertical letters glowing through the permanent dusk, was that the Dionysus was a dark-mirror copy of the Apollo Theater in Harlem, a place I’d actually been once—the closest your friend Bobby Dollar had ever come to a religious pilgrimage.

Cars and carriages and even more bizarre forms of transportation crowded the street as the high and mighty arrived, along with interested spectators and crowds of beggars who were one tossed bone away from turning into a snarling wolfpack. The Dionysus had a large troop of brawny house soldiers armed with what looked like most of the history of warfare, from clubs to steam-driven Gatling guns, and since most of the really well-to-do traveled with their own household guards as well, even the most dangerous and desperate of the onlookers kept a respectful distance. But it was a reminder that, like any place that specialized in the snatch-and-grab style of wealth acquisition, the only real security was what you could buy.

As we waited to go in, I asked Vera again who the “Himself” was who was performing. It wasn’t advertised out front, only the name of the opera, The Coronation of Poppaea. I’d never heard of it. Then again, I’ve never been big on classical music or opera, at least compared to what jazz and blues do for me.

As much as I was getting used to Hell, I still had a gut-clenching moment when I saw that the interior was built in the style of one of those old Parisian catacombs, made literally out of bones and skulls, although here they had been crafted into far more than simple walls and doorways. The arched ceiling was paneled with scenes of nature that incorporated the bones of all manner of animals, frisking sheep and placid cows, and of course the human skeletons that watched over them. It might have been the flickering torchlight that made these skeletons seem to move slightly, as though alive but under a spell. Yeah, it might just have been torchlight, but I don’t think so. The immense candelabra, the balconies, the very pillars that supported the building were also made from human and semi-human skulls and bones, many brightly painted in red or gold or white, giving the theater the look and feel of a truly disturbing circus tent.

Grand President Caym waved to us from his private box above; a little flourish of his long fingers that made him look more than ever like some immense bird shaking out its feathers. Vera was thrilled to be singled out in public by the great fellow himself. I tried to smile.

The curtain rose and the opera began. I couldn’t make a lot of sense of it, but it seemed to be about ancient Rome. The first bit was singing gods and goddesses, but the music was something even older than the kind of opera I was used to hearing on television and radio, something from the Renaissance or even earlier, I guessed. For a moment I found myself wondering if Caz would have regarded it as too modern, since she had told me the Renaissance was after her time. The thought made me sad. It was easier to send it away, like an extra being directed offstage and out of sight behind one of the immense brocade curtains.

Not wanting to think about Caz, and not even certain why, I pulled myself back to the opera and the mystery of the “Himself” that Caym had referred to. None of the performers seemed unusual, all clearly talented, none of them recognizable. As I did my best to listen to the lyrics, I came to realize that the opera was about the Roman Emperor Nero, the very same Nero whose crumbling bridge I had crossed to get into Hell. The irony of it amused me. I wondered how many other people in this charnel house of an opera palace even knew that the Neronian Bridge existed?

Then the singer portraying the emperor made his entrance, and for the first time I sensed something odd going on. It wasn’t anything about the performer, at least, not to look at. He wasn’t particularly handsome, a bit thick-faced, with a sagging, wrinkled neck, and his legs were a bit skinny for the toga he was wearing, but I sure didn’t recognize him. Others did, however, and he was greeted with applause and, to my surprise, a few catcalls and some laughter. Also, unlike the other singers, he did not look particularly comfortable on stage, which made him an odd choice to play the monarch. I supposed he had a fabulous voice to make up for it, because everyone else in the cast seemed world-class. I was mildly startled when he got ready to sing, because his throat swelled like the bulging neck-sac of a bullfrog, though even that didn’t seem unusual: a lot of the other cast members and most of the audience bore some physical sign of what they were. But when he finally began his aria, the emperor’s voice was a distinct disappointment, more than a bit rough and not very strong. Some in the audience actually laughed, which made him falter, and the jeers grew louder as he doggedly pursued the song, his throat sac distending and shrinking like the bellows on an accordion, his face growing more fearful by the moment as the crowd shouted at him.

He finished and someone else began singing, but the spell of attention had been broken and many in the audience were talking or laughing out loud. I couldn’t figure it out at all, but as I wondered why such a poor singer should be trotted out in front of the nobility of Hell that way, I was distracted by a late entrance in the upper boxes. A hush fell over the crowd and some poor soprano’s aria was suddenly less important than everybody turning around to see who was being seated in President Caym’s box.

The late arrival didn’t look the same as the last time I’d seen him, but I still knew him instantly. He was dressed in a beautifully-cut white dress uniform, the kind of thing you’d expect to see at a royal funeral in some old newsreel, except that the white fabric was so artfully splattered with arterial splashes of scarlet that I had no doubt it had been designed that way. The only question was whether it was real blood or just dye. I thought I could guess.

Grand Duke Eligor looked less human than he did on Earth, but for the moment he also looked less demonic than the monstrous form that had overtaken him as he dangled me by my neck a couple of feet above his office carpet back in San Judas. His blond hair was shaved very close to his head, and his facial features were bonier and older than on his Kenneth Vald persona. Less like a California billionaire and more like the fascist dictator of some imaginary Northern European country, a creature of hard angles and fierce, unyielding principles. But it was definitely him, Eligor the Horseman, my least favorite demon. My hackles went up. I was relieved I was in shadows, that my treacherous, underwhelming disguise wasn’t visible to him, even from this distance.

Only as I (and most of the other patrons) sat staring at Eligor settling into his seat did I have a moment of wondering where Caz was. That only lasted a moment, because once the grand duke had seated himself, one of the guards at the back of his box opened the door, letting in a gleam of pure white gold.

That was Caz, of course.