by HP Mallory
Good news was that none of them got wise to my location, although I wondered how much longer I could keep it up. Then suddenly, my Lord of the Flies pursuit just… stopped. It took me a couple of minutes to realize nobody was after me no more. I had no clue what coulda changed. Then I heard the sound of a spendy car rollin’ up to the front of this scaley pile of rocks. I glanced down and saw Alaire’s assholes linin’ up like they was about ta receive a rose like on some reality TV show. They assembled into a couple of rows that spanned the distance from the castle all the way to the spiffy wheels an’ I watched as the passenger door popped open.
Imagine my surprise ta see Tido stridin’ up to the vehicle! He looked a lot better than a guy who was locked up with me shoulda looked. But the way he was walkin’? I’ve seen a lot of defeated men in my time and he looked lower than a snake’s belly.
Alaire and Nips was walkin’ right behind him and Ogre Boy was leadin’ ‘em, carryin’ a sword that once belonged to Conan. I watched the Not-So-Jolly-Green-Giant put the sword in the backseat all nice and polite. But I couldn’t take my eyes off Lils. I could feel the sads comin’ off her, just seein’ how she dipped her head right before the car door closed. Didn’t need to see Alaire’s face to know his expression. But goddamn it if the thought of that snarky smirk didn’t make me want to do something drastrophic about it!
Still, I couldn’t argue with the prick’s thinkin’ when it came to Conan. Why waste all that monster-manpower on a little guy like me when you really had to keep an eye on the big, brawny Scot who’d cut you in half for lookin’ at Nerdlet the wrong way? Right then and there, as that car pulled out to its unknown destination—which, knowin’ Alaire, couldn’t have been pleasant—I decided that I had to make the bastard pay. Through the nose, out the ass and any other way I could fuck ‘im over.
That’s when it kind of hit me: Maybe I should haul my emaciated ass to wherever Alaire was hangin’ his hat in this dump. Maybe I could find something there that’d help me get Lils out of this shithole! At the very least, I could ruin his day and make him take me serious.
***
Turns out that I was only one floor up from where I assumed was the master of the castle’s digs. I kept listenin’ for any sounds of him but the coast stayed clear of trouble. Anybody else, I coulda seen or heard comin’ from a couple miles away.
I tried a few doors, but they were locked. After the eighth one, I started getting pissed. I was on a mission of vengeanger here… Couldn’t one of these damn doors function proper so I could get my whole rescue mission started already? I made up my mind right there to bust down the next door that acted like a stubborn fuck but luckily for the next one, it opened.
One quick glance around the place and I knew it musta belonged to the Queen Bitch. The open closet doors revealed a full Pornhub line of outfits. An in-vanity table was decked out with a big mirror, lights and cosmetics out the wazoo, and the four-poster bed was across from it. That bed looked invitin’ enough to sleep in for the next month but I had me a bad feelin’ that sleep was the last thing to happen there. Barf right?
It wasn’t until I heard the footsteps behind me that I snapped out of my rever-see. Here I’d been standin’ in the doorway like the world’s biggest asshole when another asshole could have easily spotted me. I ducked inside, shut the door a little too hard and looked around for a place to hide. Not too many choices. Under the bed was the classic one, but the sheets were stripped off and I doubted I’d fit anyway. So I bolted for the closet, pullin’ the door closed a bit more to cover myself up. Good thing I was so rap-quick ‘cause right after I hid was when the main door opened. Kid you the fuck not.
I did my best to stifle my breathin’. At first, the steps sounded normal, like someone out for a stroll or lookin’ to retrieve their misplaced butt-plug. That was until they stopped next to the closet and I swore I could hear someone sniffin’ the air. Ah, shitballs, not again…
The door suddenly flew open and I leapt into the rear of the closet, slammin’ my back hard and puttin’ up my dukes and gettin’ ready to get down to it. I dropped ‘em when I saw who it was.
“Nips?”
Like she usually did when she couldn’t believe what she was seein’, Lily just stood there with her jaw fallin’ down to her Grade A boobies. Eventually, she managed to remember how her tongue worked.
“Bill?”
I only thought the Fury was fast. That birdbrain had nothin’ on Nerdlet when she yanked my ass out o’ the closet an’ hugged me like I was the world’s filthiest but best loved teddy bear.
“Oh, God, I’m so glad you’re safe,” she sobbed into my shoulder, squeezin’ me as tightly as she could.
“Well, safe ain’t exactly what I’d call it,” I said, huggin’ her around her neck.
She cleared her throat and said, “Tallis, he—”
“Yeah, I saw ‘im from the window,” I told her. “Looked awful healthy for a guy who’s been on the same starve-a-nation diet I was on for the last who-the-hell-knows?”
Nips’ face looked like it would fall apart all over again. “I… I made a deal with Alaire to save him.”
“You did what?” I hissed in reply, not believin’ my ears.
“It was either do that or else Tallis would die in his cell,” Lils shot back. “He lost his immortality. And we both know how much Alaire would have enjoyed letting him die slowly. Of course there was no way I was going to let that happen.”
She was snarlin’ at me so I took a peek at her aura. When I saw the weirdo strainstrings of black in it, I got scared for her. “I thought you said Persephabitch received her evict-shit notice? ’Cause yo, something funny is goin’ on with your aura, Nips.”
Then she told me how she had Donald (or whatever the f that spirit’s name is) in her and how he got rid of Persephone per Alaire’s orders before Lils made a deal to spare the Yeti’s life. But only if she stayed with Alaire in this hellhole.
“So Conan’s on his way back to the Dark Wood right now?” I asked.
She nodded. “He was healed and Alaire promised to return him,” she said between sobs. “And now I have to stay with Alaire forever.”
“Oh, this just keeps gettin’ better,” I grumbled, wonderin’ if Nerdlet was anglin’ for a second death. “Seriously, Nips, we both know Alaire won’t hold true to his word.” Her eyes widened. “Tell me you didn’t believe him?”
She swallowed hard. “I didn’t believe him but I had no other choice. Tallis needed to be healed, Bill.”
“Shitballs, Lils, this situation’s bad,” I said, shakin’ my head. “Alaire’s prolly shippin’ Conan somewhere worse than this hellhole.”
A horrible shriek I hope I never hear again came from the window. One look at the Fury sittin’ in it and I darted back towards the closet.
“Bill, it’s okay, it’s okay!” Lils said, catchin’ me by the wrist. “The Furies work for me now.”
That morsel made me stop tryin’ to wiggle free. “Really? Since when?” I had to wonder what the hell else was different in this parallel universe from the one I thought I was living in. I mean, Lils was friends with the Furies? WTF right?
A little sneer appeared on her tear-stained face. “Since I kicked the ass of the first one.” I thought I saw a bit of black flickerate across her eyeballs when she said that. If Donnie Boy was doin’ for her what he used to do for Tido, I’d better never piss her off while he was in the hood.
Mrs. Big Bird hopped inside, tossin’ somethin’ to Nips that she caught like a pro. Both of us recognized it straightaway. “Your old, beat-up phone,” she sighed.
I looked at it, then at the feathered bitch. “You got that off my scent, didn’t you?”
The shriek I got in reply made my ears ache. While they were still ringin’, Nips asked, “How would the Fury have gotten your scent?”
“We go way back,” I answered as I eyed my phone. “Hey, does it still work?” I asked, thinkin’ we were long overdue for some good news.
&n
bsp; Lils thumbed the power switch and I saw the cracked screen light up. She started to smile but then she frowned. “It’s got a little juice but no bars. You’ll need to go somewhere that you can make a call.”
I took her free hand and squeezed it. “No, Nerdlet… we’re gonna go somewhere we can make a call.”
I knew she would argue with me the second I saw her eyes. “If I go missing right now, Alaire’s going to lock down the entire Underground City. You’re on your own, Bill.”
“An’ who are you proposin’ I call? Mistress Jenny at the Toy Store’s the only other helpful person down here. And she’s dude only knows how far away from us. Plus, I didn’t exactly get her number.”
She started looking at the door and seemed twice as nervous as before. “So call AE and ask them to send some help down here.”
Right at that moment, another set of footsteps came rollin’ up from outside. Before I could do anything, Nips slapped the phone in my hand and pushed me toward the bird still perched by the window.
“Get him out of here!” she ordered Mrs. Big Bird. The Fury squawked once and did a full one-eighty that made my head do a full three-sixty. Before I could say or do anything else, the bird grabbed my shoulders with her talons and up, up and away we went. The window we were previously standin’ in started shrinkeratin’ as fast as my stomach dropped.
“I’m coming back for you, Lils!” I yelled out. “Whatever it takes!”
Don’t know if she heard me. Then it crossed my mind that the wrong guys coulda heard me. But dammit, I was too pissed not to yell at that castle that was now only pebble-sized. Yeah, Nips told me the plan was for all of us to get out, not just me and Tido. And I’d be damned—eh, kind of already was—if I were gonna let Lils get stuck playin’ with Alaire’s ballsack for eternity.
Birdbrain was movin’ at a pretty good clip, and I noticed some lights down below but I only had peepers for the castle.
“Turn around!” I yelled at her. She gave me the kinda stare I usually get from women I don’t call back in the mornin’. Then she just went back to watchin’ where she was flyin’, me still dangling in her claws. Since she wasn’t goin’ where I wanted to, I thwacked her in the chest. “I said, turn around, ya dumb bird!”
I got me a really evil look from her that made me think she was sizin’ me up for dinner. This time, she went back ta what she was doin’ but a lot slower. So I went off on her. “Y’know, the fugliest one o’ Jenny’s girls is wayyy cuter than you! Probably smarter too! And more obedient!”
The shriek hit my ears just a second before I started to take that long-delayed drop to the ground. That’s when I started screamin’ before I remembered my phone which was in my hand. I did the math about what would happen to said phone on impact with the ground and then scrunched down, puttin’ my body between my last lifeline and the ground. I couldn’t die but my phone sure as hell could.
I yelled out when my body slapped onto the pavement. Damn! That smarted like a…
Wait a minute… pavement?
That took my mind off the pain and I decided ta take a better look around me. Well, the Fury managed ta do her job. I was back in Dis! An’ yeah, it looked like my body was pretty good an’ dislocated but nothin’ that a few minutes wouldn’t heal.
“The way for man to win eternity…”
- Dante’s Inferno
TWENTY-THREE
Bill
Now, I gots ta admit. As far as places Furiosa coulda dropped me, there’s way worse places than Dis, which is kind of like NYC… only with one-hundred-and-fifty percent more demons. It’s got all the kind of junkrap you’d see in any city on Earth but at least in Dis you had a fifty/fifty shot o’ not gettin’ jumped by Alaire’s crew.
I took a quick peek around ta see if I was alone, which was how it looked. Yeah, the coast was clear… no Watchers and only an occasionalized car rollin’ up and passin’ me on the street. That’s when I decided to check the phone.
One thing I didn’t have to worry about around here was power. The forcefield ‘round this place kept every cell inside it charged up. But then I saw something that wasn’t there the last time I passed through with Lils and Tido. Signal strength round here was decent but never higher than two bars. Now it was all the way up to five and you sure as shit couldn’t blame the weather for that happenin’ down here.
I picked myself up and had another three-sixty glance around to make sure I was still alone. Which I was. But the longer I stayed out here, the more likely I’d run into trouble all over again. That cheery little bubble is what made me finally notice the dumpster ahead o’ me on the right. Doubt anybody’d think to look for an escapee like yours truly in there. ‘Course I’d rather be chillin’ inside an actual building but ya takes whatever ya gets, right? Choosers can’t be beggars.
Once I felt sure my legs still worked after my dive from the sky, I went over to the dumpster and tried ta get inside it. It seemed like the window in my cell all over again, minus the booster table. Musta taken about four tries before I finally got a good enough grip on the lip ta haul myself up. When I remembered how I managed to slip through the window, I got ta thinkin’ that maybe losin’ all that extra weight was actually a good thing for me. But when I realized what I was sayin’, I had to like symbolickly punch myself upside the head without actually hurtin’ myself.
I didn’t so much crawl as slipperate and crash inside. Before I got stuck in Hotel Cali-Fuck-You, the smell from all the crap I was lyin’ on top of woulda been harsh in my nostrils. Now, I considered it mostly overboring. Compared to the castle dungeon, this joint was practically a five-star hotel.
The garbage was piled high enough for me to reach up to the lid at the back corner, near the hinge. I gave it a good tug and barely got my fingers out o’ the way before it crashed down on top o’ me. My ears started cussin’ me out for makin’ even more noise pollution. For a few minutes I waited for someone to lower the boomstick on me, but it was only me, the darkness and the reekin’ garbage. Oh, yeah, and the cell, which was givin’ off the only light in this whole joint.
I walk/waddled to the nearest metal wall, takin’ the most comfortable seat I’d sat in for a while and I started scrollin’ through my contact list. That little errand took me a long damn time too ‘cause Billy Angel is popular, if ya knows what I means… wink wink.
Skeletorhorn was out. Even if I trusted that weasel bastard to actually follow through on a legitegal complaint, I doubted he’d give us any help. It wasn’t even worth the bother o’ talkin’ to him. So I put a call in to the only people at AE I knew would actually help. Or might.
After the third ring, the phone was answered. “I told you never to call this number again, Bill.”
Despite the audible growl in her voice, I couldn’t have been happier than if I’d just spent a week-long orgy with Jenny’s girls. “Hey, yo, Polly! How’s tricks?”
“Don’t ‘Polly’ me, you careless, little letch,” Polly snapped back. “After all the cover-up for that Lily Harper fiasco, my sister and I have more than earned a long stretch of some peace and quiet from you.”
Won’t lie… that barb stung me a bit. Havin’ known Polly and her sister for centuries, I’d never called in a favor. Well, not since the one when they had ta tone down the language in the report on my epic failure at protectin’ Lils on her last car trip home. If AE knew exactly how badly I’dmessed up, they’d have prolly disincomposed me… if I were lucky. If I weren’t, I’d prolly be makin’ a new home in the Asylum, and spendin’ my eternity as an angel-cicle.
“Who’s on the phone, Polly?” said another voice on the other end.
“Nobody important,” Polly told her sister, the less ugly one. When the sound got muffled, I figured she musta put her hand over the receiver.
Polly and her sister were Muses. Yeah, seriously—Greek goddesses! But only one o’ them was nice.
“Nobody knows the trouble I seen,” I sang into the phone. “Nobody knows…but Polly.”
&n
bsp; Just like always, Polly’s sister barked out a laugh before I heard a quick scuffle on the other end. I took the phone away from my ear to avoid my ears gettin’ bludgeonocked too much more but the sweet voice I heard next made me put it closer again.
“Billy!” Sally all but trilled. “It’s been far too long!”
For what musta been the nine millionth time, I had ta wonder how this pair o’ opposites could actually be sisters. “I know, but hey… places ta go, things ta do…”
“Husbands to cuckold, drugs to consume and responsibilities to dodge?” Sally finished with another unique laugh. It always made me think o’ the happiest, sappiest song I ever heard, one that still put me in a good mood. Hearin’ it in the middle of the Underground City was about the best thing that happened to me all year.
I heard a click before Polly’s voice returned ta play killjoy. “Do you have any idea what trouble we’re currently courting by—”
“Oh, lighten up, sis!” Sally said, and I could tell she’d put the call on speakerphone ‘cause it sounded all echoey an’ shit. “How many times have you said that we could run circles around any investigation that comes our way? We didn’t get to be Junior and Senior VPs of Requisitions just by our outstanding looks.”
As usual, Polly didn’t like it when her sister made too much sense. “No, but we could lose everything we’ve worked so hard to build by associating with this stone screw-up.”
