by Tad Williams
I get that a lot.
We drove through a dark neighborhood of tall apartment buildings, not the nice kind they had out on University Avenue with their gleaming frontages and doormen in uniforms but the kind where people dried their washing on their balconies, and broken children’s toys slowly turned into bleached fossils on patches of crabgrass-studded dirt that had once been lawns. The sidewalks were empty, of course—it was well after two in the morning—but the litter suggested they were usually full of people with nothing much to do. Our tires crunched through bottle glass as we turned into a downsloping driveway.
“I’m spending a lot more time than I’d like in underground garages these days,” I said as she nosed the big car down the ramp into a five- or six-story apartment building that, as far as I could see, was indistinguishable from its neighbors along the quiet, dark, depressed-looking street.
“You won’t be in this one long.” She passed several empty parking spaces and drove right toward the back wall of the garage. As we approached it she reached up and thumbed a device on her sunshade; the entire wall lifted up like a magic trick. We drove through and it slid quietly down behind us again.
“Whoa.” I was impressed. “How did you find this?”
“It’s mine. I had it built. And all the contractors are dead.” She gave me a look—I honestly couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. “Going to keep your mouth shut about it?”
“You’re taking me to your place?” I had a moment of what I imagine is teenage excitement—“imagine” because I can’t remember the actual thing and “teenage” because suddenly I felt like I was growing hair all over my body and could no longer create articulate speech. I’m telling you, it may have been pheromones or just Hell’s nastiest magic, but the Countess of Cold Hands could have made an actual stiff stiff. If you know what I mean.
“Yes, it’s my place, but it’s not the only one I have so don’t think you can sell me out. It’s a very small piece of information. And you’re not the only one who has it.”
That had several strange resonances, but I didn’t bother to follow up as we got out of the car. “Thanks. You have a way of making a guy feel right at home.” I followed her up a dark, narrow stairway from her hidden parking spot. “Speaking of, are you still pointing that gun at me?”
“What do you think?”
“Yeah, I figured.”
She unlocked the door at the top of the stairs—I couldn’t help noticing the door itself was as heavy as the kind they use in government air raid shelters—then led me into a really surprising place.
Surprise number one was when she flipped the switch and light bloomed everywhere, a half-rainbow of muted reds, yellows, and sunset oranges. The apartment had no windows at all as far as I could see, as if we were underground, which we weren’t. The other surprise was that, based on how the Countess dressed and talked, I would have expected some kind of serious stark modernism or at least a sort of bohemian informality. Instead, her hideaway looked like some antique version of a sultan’s harem—you could almost imagine it as the setting for some romance novel about a sultan’s seraglio. The walls were covered by streaming gauze, with little lights set in alcoves or hung on the walls glowing through the fabric. A huge bronze mirror stood in a corner, draped with what looked like very expensive versions of Carnival beads, and across from it stood a curtained bed. The filmy red draperies were drawn and several layers deep, so I couldn’t make out what the bed itself looked like, but just being near it carried a strong erotic charge.
Bad angel, I told myself. Stupid angel. Snares of the enemy, remember?
I realized I was staring at the bed. Instead of reveling in this demonstration of the effect she had even on a battle-hardened enemy, my hostess seemed irritated and maybe even a bit embarrassed.
“Nice place,” I said. “Who was your decorator, Cecil B. DeMille?”
“I happen to like it.” She sounded angry. “If you want a shower the bathroom’s through there.” She pointed at a door half-hidden by more filmy drapery, then settled herself in an overstuffed antique chair in front of an equally old-fashioned writing desk, the picture only spoiled by the open laptop on top of it and the nest of cords snaking out from beneath. “You should be able to find some clothes that will fit you in the closet. Take anything you want.” She turned to her monitor screen as if I had ceased to exist.
I couldn’t figure out anything about this woman.
No, I reminded myself. Not a woman. Maybe once upon a time, but not for a while. She’s part of the ruling class of Hell—a demon, sworn to destruction and the perversion of everything good, and if she’s helping you, it’s only because it suits her. Don’t trust a single thing she says or does.
Still, when I stepped out of the tiled, gloriously hot shower and began rummaging through the carpeted walk-in closet, I wasn’t thrilled to find an entire row of hangers full of khakis, expensive bespoke sports coats, slacks, and collarless dress shirts, as well as polo shirts in all the colors of a blooming tropical forest. It made my gut clench, because I’d met someone with just this kind of wealthy-preppie taste recently. A Grand Duke of Hell, to be precise. I checked the monogram on the inside pocket of one of the coats. As I suspected, it was KV—Kenneth Vald.
I picked out what was least offensive to my eye, black slacks and a white button shirt, and returned to the main room. “Nice closet. Whose clothes?”
“None of your business, Dollar.”
“Are you sure about that? Maybe it’s someone I know.”
“I’m asking the questions, remember. Unless you’d like to leave now, but this isn’t a great area at this time of the night—especially if you’re a wanted man on foot.”
Stalemate. I fell into a chair not far from her desk and solaced myself by digging my toes into the thick, fleecy rug and thinking how much better this was than crouching in a cold river breathing through a tube that smelled of tonic water. “Okay, Countess, I definitely owe you one. What do you want to know?”
“Everything.” She pinned me with those pale blue eyes. I couldn’t help remembering the ones she’d had the first time I saw her—scarlet as an Amsterdam whore’s window. “Tell me everything that’s happened to you since you’ve been caught up in this.”
“And if I do, will you answer some questions of mine?”
“No guarantees, Dollar. Like you said, you owe me.”
So I told her where I’d been and what I’d done. I might have shaved off an uncomfortable rough edge here or there, and I certainly didn’t go into minute detail about how badly the ghallu had scared me. I also kept a few facts about Heaven and The Compasses secret too—after all, I was just paying back a favor, not selling out my side of the ancient war. I didn’t stop to point out where I was leaving things unsaid because I could tell she knew, and the Countess had the good grace not to task me on any of them until I got to the most recent stuff I’d heard from my friend Fatback.
“Grasswax had gambling debts with Prince Sitri? Are you certain? Who told you?”
“Now it’s my turn to say none of your business.” I wasn’t going to give up my sources. Not that it would be so hard for her to find out—lots of folks knew about the pig man and his grudge against Hell. Still, it was a matter of principle. Yes, I do have a few. “What’s the big deal?”
“Because, you pillock, I told you already that I gave the…thing to Grasswax. To hide. He owed me and I knew things about him, things he didn’t want known by the powers above him. But somehow I didn’t hear he was in debt to Prince Sitri. The slimy little bastard!”
“Sitri or Grasswax?”
“Grasswax! He must have been more afraid of Sitri than he was of me.” She got up and began to pace. “What’s Sitri’s interest in all this?”
I would be lying if I didn’t say that part of me enjoyed watching her walk back and forth in front of me. She had kicked off the slippers she’d donned to pick me up, and watching her pale calves, ankles, and feet was mesmerizing. Distracting,
too.
“Hang on, I don’t get any of this.” I looked at something else for a moment to regather my thoughts. “You must have taken a big risk stealing something from Eligor. Why would you give it to a weasel like Grasswax?”
“Because I was being followed, and I had to get rid of it! Because the…the thing…”
“You can go ahead and call it ‘the feather’ now.”
This last shot had been fired somewhat offhandedly, just to see the effect, which was pretty impressive: Her eyes widened in what I almost could have sworn was helpless fear. “How did you find out?”
Since I didn’t want to get Edie Parmenter in trouble I only said, “A little bird told me—but that’s not the issue. I know all about it.” Which was one of the least truthful things I’d said all day. I still had no idea what a golden feather might be and why Eligor or anyone else should be so worked up about it, but just then I wanted her to think I knew more than I did. “I need to know everything else. Come on, Countess, help me fill in the details. You were being followed. You had this incredibly valuable thing—so you gave it to Grasswax? A lying, treacherous bastard who’s not only a demon from Hell to begin with but also a lawyer? Why would you do that?”
“Why? Because I thought I had a hold over him. I promised that if he’d keep it safe, I’d destroy some evidence I had on him.”
“Why did you have something on him? What was it?”
She was clearly getting frustrated with me. “It doesn’t matter! Don’t you understand, you idiot? Where I come from, everybody has something on everybody. That’s how we survive. Everyone spies on everyone and cheats on everyone, and everyone makes deals. That’s how we climb up out of the mud and the shit and the molten lava and make a little freedom, create a little life for ourselves….”
“Like here in San Judas,” I said. “Where you’ve created this pretty little pied-a-terre for yourself.”
“This place?” She looked around with scorn on her face. “One of a dozen. I used to have houses all over the place. Not just in California, either.”
“So what happened?”
She looked at me like I was not just an idiot but the intentional kind, although there was also something strange beneath it, a simmering anger I hadn’t seen before. “You haven’t figured it out yet? Some gumshoe you are, Dollar.”
“I’m not a gumshoe, I keep telling you that. That’s your fantasy. I’m just a guy trying to do his job and stay alive. Right now, staying alive is my job. Yeah, I think I know what happened. Because it isn’t just blackmail that can buy freedom is it? It’s also doing favors—all kinds of favors—for the right people. Important people, like Kenneth Vald, otherwise known as Grand Duke Eligor. Your sugar-daddy.”
She tossed her head and her white-blonde hair fanned and then fell straight again. “You can put it that way if it makes you feel good. I’m sure you wouldn’t believe I actually fell for him.”
“Yeah, you’re right—I wouldn’t. But I’m a big boy, so I understand. He’s powerful. He’s very powerful. Rich as Bill Gates but probably a lot more interesting, what with the eternal damnation and the sixty legions in Hell and all that. Yeah, I can definitely understand why a tough, smart little cookie like you set your sights on someone like that. What I don’t understand is why you decided to steal from him. That’s just asking for trouble. And why a golden feather?”
She stopped pacing then and stared at me with such cold fury that I swear I could feel myself crystallizing from the cellular level out. “Stole from him. Oh, yeah, I decided that instead of staying the contented mistress of one of the most powerful creatures on this whole green earth, I’d just rip him off. That’s exactly the kind of thing you’d expect from a nasty little thing like me, isn’t it?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” I said. “But I do want answers.”
She turned away from me then and walked to the antique desk, yanked out the drawer and began rummaging in it. “I should have known,” she said, but in a low voice that sounded strangled and odd. “I should have known. Should. Have. Known.”
“Look, spare me the Snake Pit act, or Lady Macbeth, or whatever you’re doing here,” I said, walking up behind her. “I don’t care why any of it happened, and I’m certainly not judging you. If I’d been condemned to Hell I don’t think I’d be worrying a lot about what I did afterward either. But I still need to know what you did and why, since I seem to be on the hook for it with your boyfriend.” I put my hand on her shoulder, but even through the robe the chill of her skin was startling enough to make me pull back, and that was what saved me. She whirled. The huge, curved knife in her hand hissed past my jugular, nicking me despite my reflexive lunge backward. The weapon was one of those long Gurkha blades called a kukri, and little Casimira clearly knew how to use it.
I reached up to my throat just in case I had underestimated the damage and was bleeding to death, but when I took my hand away there was only a thin smear of blood. “What the hell…?”
“You bastard,” she said in the strained voice of someone talking to herself. “Not judging me, are you?” She took another backhand swipe, this time at my belly, and I jumped away just in time, but as soon as I landed she was on me again. I grabbed at her arm but she slipped under it. She actually got the point of her knife against my gut but a kukri is much better for slashing than stabbing and I managed to spin away to the side, suffering nothing worse than another shallow cut. Still, I was already in bad shape from my multiple run-ins with the ghallu, and I knew this was not just a squabble with an unhappy female—the Countess was as strong as I was, a lot angrier, and she was the one holding the sharp object.
“Stop now,” I said. “I’m not kidding!” I was looking around for something to defend myself with, but in this Turkish boudoir of an apartment I couldn’t find anything more useful than a chair, so I promptly grabbed one and held it before me. It occurred to me that if I’d also had a whip I might have a chance of taming this tigress, but I didn’t feel I could do much with a heavy piece of furniture except what I was doing—clumsily trying to keep her at bay.
She came after me again, low and with her hands wide, starting with a feint at my face. When I lifted the chair to block her she kicked out and got me in the shin hard enough to make me lose my balance and stumble sideways. She was right on top of me as I fought to regain my footing but I hammered her small pale foot with the leg of the chair, then as she hissed and took her weight off it, I managed to keep the chair from overbalancing me long enough to sweep her other leg out from under her. As she tumbled to the floor I very briefly considered hitting her with the heavy piece of furniture, but even though she’d just tried to slit my gorge, I sensed there was something strange going on: She fought like someone defending herself, even though she was the one who’d attacked me. Her eyes were distant, too, even desperate, full of what a more poetic angel might call resigned horror. Not the emotions you expect from a veteran hell-beast doing her best to exsanguinate you.
As the Countess hit the floor I leaped on top of her, paying close attention to the long-bladed kukri that for the moment was under her. As she rolled away and slashed at my face with it, catching my cheek and ear, I managed to grab hold of her knife-arm and carry it past me. I slammed it against the floor and promptly threw my body on top of it, pinning her wrist so that she couldn’t reach me to slash me—at least not with her knife. She managed to give me a good scratching with her other hand, then half an instant later, she somehow pulled her legs up and threw them around my neck. Despite the slenderness of those smooth white pins, within seconds she managed to cut off most of the blood trying to get to my brain. Things were going black, and everything that was Bobby Dollar began to disappear down a tunnel into roaring depths. I wasn’t entirely certain what was going on with the Countess and her crazy attack, but I had a strong feeling that if I passed out I might not wake up again, so I did the only thing left to me to do—I punched her in the head as hard as I could. It bounced her skull off the c
arpeted floor and for a moment shook loose the astonishing grip of her legs around my neck. I took advantage of the reprieve to gulp in as much air as I could, then grabbed her knife arm and started twisting until at last, as she snarled and spat and grimaced at me with what looked a great deal like insane hatred, I finally got her to open her fingers and drop the blade to the floor. I knocked the big knife as far away as I could, but that moment of changed balance gave her the chance to slide partway out from under me. Then all of a sudden she was somehow on my back instead, pulling my hair in the most painful way imaginable while she used her other hand to hit me over and over again on my already bloody right ear.
I reached up with both hands and caught her behind the neck, then yanked her forward over my head and shoulders so that she cracked her forehead against the floor once more—which, even through the cushioning of the carpet, had to be getting uncomfortable for her. The she-demon didn’t hesitate, though, immediately snaking her legs around me once more, tightening them this time just under my floating ribs, which she then proceeded to do her best to break while I did what I could to get her off of me. Neither of us quite succeeded, but we were both inflicting a great deal of pain on each other. The fight had become something like a wrestling match between two crazy drunks, neither of us really sure who was winning, or why we were fighting, or even very concerned about such trivia—all we could do was keep trying to snap each other in half.
I finally got her under me again, and although she had one leg over my shoulder, the knee of the other in my solar plexus, and was busily punching at my face with her hands, I managed to ignore the pain long enough to get the bar of my forearm down across her windpipe. I held it there, ignoring the hard blows she was giving me except to let my head roll with them, diffusing as much of the force as possible. After half a minute the fists became open hands, then the slaps became a strengthless grabbing and scratching. At last her arms went limp, and she sagged. I didn’t want to kill her—even if she was determined to do me in, she still had information I needed—but I stayed on top of her, and though I eased the pressure on her throat so she could breathe I didn’t remove my arm.
