by T. A. Pratt
“Even with its healing powers, it might not be able to keep you alive if Death decides to stop your heart. He can kill any of us with a thought.”
Rondeau shrugged. “I’ve seen Marla catch fire, take damage that should have reduced her to ash, and the cloak healed her. But yeah, he might kill my body, but not before I get a few licks in, and anyway, what’s a body? I’m fond of this one, but push comes to shove…”
“If your mind goes looking for a new host, you’ll oust someone else’s mind,” Hamil said. “That’s murder.”
Rondeau nodded seriously. “I’d accept the karmic debt. Besides, if I get killed, I’ll try to take over Death’s body—I know it’s not his real form, that ultimately he doesn’t have a body, but he’s walking around in flesh-and-blood up here, and if he has a brain, I might be able to seize control of it. Wouldn’t that piss him off? Makes me wish I could jump bodies at will, but I’m stuck in this one until it stops operating. If that doesn’t work, if he’s got some kind of god-condom on to keep me from stealing his body, Ayres is usually with him, so I’ll take over his body.”
“A good plan. When will you strike?”
“Ah. That’s the thing. We went to Marla’s tonight, and her wardrobe was gone. We heard Death summoned you last night, and we were wondering…”
“He called me to Marla’s apartment,” Hamil said. “Perhaps he saw the cloak, and recognized it as a threat? But it’s not something you can burn or destroy, so he’d have to dispose of it some other way. He asked me to arrange a meeting with the Bay Witch.”
“Crap. So you think, what, Marla’s cloak’s on the bottom of the bay?”
“It seems plausible, but I can’t be sure.”
“Can I talk to the Bay Witch? Is she with us?”
“I wouldn’t count on it. She likes Marla, but she asked Death to kill off some invasive species that was taking over the bay, and he did so. I’m afraid he may have her loyalty now.”
“Damn it.” Rondeau stood up and paced a bit. “Hmm. Down by the docks, that’s Honeyed Knots territory. Maybe they saw something, saw the wardrobe get transported? I’ll put the word out. And if the Bay Witch did take the wardrobe away and hide it, well, a big fucking magical thing on the bottom of the bay, there must be a way to track that.”
“And then what? You go down to get it with scuba gear?”
“I was thinking of making Langford infuse me with selkie blood or give me gills or something,” Rondeau said. “But your idea is way simpler.”
“Good luck. I’ll try to keep Death from suspecting anything, though that probably means blaming things on Viscarro.”
“I never liked that moldy old troglodyte anyway,” Rondeau said. “And he’s not loyal to the cause. I say give him hell.”
Rondeau crouched beneath an overpass near the docks and shared a few tokes on a pipe with a handful of Honeyed Knots. He didn’t even know what he was smoking, but he’d smoked just about everything in the past, so it didn’t much matter. “So, fellas,” he said, “did you see anything like that lately?”
The Honeyed Knots were a more stylish bunch than the Four Tree Gang, most wearing beads and charms and fetishes, many with extensive facial piercings that reminded Rondeau uncomfortably of a cannibal witch named Bethany he’d had the displeasure to meet a while back. Though the Four Tree Gang outnumbered the Honeyed Knots by about three to one, the Honeyed Knots had a much higher magical skill level, consisting mostly of disgraced apprentices who’d been bounced out of their positions, though every one had a sob story about how they’d been unjustly persecuted. The Four Tree Gang was good if you needed somebody beat up, or a lot of equipment stolen out of the back of a warehouse, but the Honeyed Knots were better for more delicate work. One of Marla’s most significant moves as chief sorcerer had been mediating a peace between the two gangs, and giving them a sort of quasi-official status in the city’s magical underworld, retaining the leaders of both gangs as “consultants” and occasionally employing them in operations that needed warm bodies who wouldn’t be totally confused if impossible things started happening. They were in awe of Marla, who’d kicked the asses of the best fighters in both gangs—her way of mediating a peace was, of course, somewhat violent—and Rondeau trusted the loyalty of the gangs, in the aggregate if not necessarily in the case of each individual member.
One of the Honeyed Knots, a guy named Mondrian with an elaborate abstract face tattoo and enormous pegs in his earlobes, nodded. “I was down by pier 14 yesterday morning, early, and saw some old guy leading a group of five or six people carrying a big bulky thing, it could have been a wardrobe. It was wrapped all over with chains. They went to the end of the dock, and the old guy said something, I couldn’t hear what. Then the guys with him tossed the wardrobe, if that’s what it was, into the water, and they all walked off.”
Rondeau nodded. “That all?”
Mondrian grinned, showing sharpened teeth. “Nah. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, right? The water’s not real deep there that time of morning, so I figured I’d see if the package was anything worth salvaging. I went down to the water, and was just about to jump in when the Bay Witch popped out of the waves.” He shook his head. “I always heard she was out there, but I’ve never seen her before, hot blonde in a tight wetsuit, pure surfer-girl, I couldn’t believe it. I bet she’s really a hundred years old and has seawater for blood. She looked at me like I was, I don’t know, some kind of weird bug, and then she dove down. I couldn’t see much under the water, it was sort of churned up and it was only just dawn, but I think she took off with the box, yeah. There was nothing there when I poked around anyway, and there were so many chains on it, the thing would’ve dropped straight to the bottom.”
Rondeau clapped him on the shoulder. “Thanks, bro. That helps.”
Mondrian nodded, sucked on the pipe for a moment, then said, “So, Marla. Is she, you know. Coming back?”
“We’re working on that,” Rondeau said. “And you just went a long way toward making it happen.” He said his farewells and headed toward his current safe house, a utility shed near the little amusement park down by the esplanade. Being a revolutionary ringleader had its good points, but sleeping on cots next to old paint cans and broken carousel horses wasn’t one of them. Not that he had much night left to sleep in. He opened his cell phone and made a call. “Hey, Beadle. We’re going to need a boat, and some diving gear, and somebody who can do a little divination.”
In the first glow of dawn, Ayres led a score of his newly exhumed zombies down the street, Booth walking stiffly at his side. Ayres had draped the zombies in illusions to make them look alive, and he’d made them all black, just to mess with Booth—except for one, which Ayres had decided to disguise as a young Abraham Lincoln, acromegaly and all. “It’s this way,” Ayres said, for Booth’s benefit, and led his little army down the steps to the rocky strand of stinking beach, toward the entry to Viscarro’s tunnels.
As he had suspected, the door was bricked up. Ayres clucked his tongue and moved aside, and his zombies stepped forward, lifting pickaxes and sledgehammers and banging in perfect rhythm against the bricks, smashing through them in a matter of minutes. Ayres rang the silver bell, and Death dropped down from above, apparently having leapt from the top of the sea cliff, or else simply materialized in mid-air. He landed in a crouch, then straightened. “Well, then, in we go.”
“Why did you have us break the door down, sir?” Booth said. “Surely no wall can stand before you.”
“I like to give you fellows something to do,” Death said. “To make you feel useful. Hamil says one can rule as effectively with kindness as fear, and I thought I’d experiment.” He paused. “Though perhaps telling you my motives spoils the effect? Ah, well. It doesn’t really matter.” Death strode into the darkness.
Ayres followed, and the little zombie horde came after them. When Death reached the unmanned gate, he reached out and tore the door off, tossing it behind him to clang on the stone floor.
<
br /> “Viscarro!” Death shouted. “Your new master is here!” All the vault doors that had stood open when Ayres came—was it only a few days before?—were now sealed shut, but the god just spun their wheels and pushed them open, like a series of airlocks in a science fiction movie. Death paused, noticing the vaults along the side walls, too. “Come out, or I’ll start opening your treasure chests and breaking whatever I find inside! What I can’t break, I’ll eat, Viscarro! Come out, and stand before me!”
A crackling public address system came to life. “One moment,” Viscarro’s disembodied voice said.
The circular vault door before them swung open, revealing Viscarro and a dozen of his apprentices, all armed with rather outlandish weapons—pole-arms and morning-stars and axes and swords—probably taken from Viscarro’s ancient armory. Viscarro himself was unarmed, dressed in a simple robe, unadorned apart from a gold-rimmed monocle. He bowed slightly. “My apologies for not answering your earlier messages, my lord. I was in the midst of an inventory.” He glanced behind him, at his well-armed horde. “We were doing a thorough catalog of my hall of weapons when you arrived.” Viscarro squinted and frowned. “That man behind you looks exactly like Abraham Lincoln.”
Death crossed his arms and looked down on Viscarro. “Did you try to explode me?”
Viscarro blinked. “No, my lord, I did not.”
“Mmm. You only tried to avoid me, then?”
“I…may be forced to admit that much.”
“Why? Why not kiss my ring and swear fealty? I am a gentle ruler…unless I’m given cause to be cruel.”
“I dislike conflict,” Viscarro said.
The god reached out and caressed Viscarro’s cheek. “Whether you’re guilty of assaulting me or not, I think I need to make an example of you. I’m going to rip out your soul and send it to Hell now.”
Viscarro’s acolytes raised their weapons, but Viscarro lifted a hand to stay them.
“Facing death with bravery,” Death said. “I hope you don’t think that impresses me. I don’t care if you go stoically or shit yourself in fear.” He reached out, his hand passing through Viscarro’s skin, disappearing to the wrist into his chest…and then he pulled his hand out again, in confusion. “What is this?”
Viscarro sighed. “Something wrong, my lord? Have you chosen to be merciful?”
“You have no life.” The Walking Dead circled Viscarro. “You’re a ghost haunting a body.” He poked Viscarro in the back with one finger. “You’re…oh, what’s the word? A lich.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Viscarro said, but his acolytes milled in confusion and began talking low amongst themselves. Ayres smiled. The secret was out. How amusing.
“Hmm. Your life must be hidden here somewhere,” Death said, “but I already grow bored with you, and the thought of searching these mounds of crap for the box that holds your soul is tedious. Still, you must be punished for your refusal to answer my summons, and for daring to cheat death.”
“All sorcerers cheat death,” Viscarro said. “I was simply forced to use a more inelegant solution than most.”
“I don’t care about everyone else. I care about you. You took your life out of your body, Viscarro.” Death placed both hands on the sorcerer’s shoulders. “I’m the only one who gets to do that.” He looked at Ayres. “His body is a corpse, Ayres, and you are the master of corpses. Make him dance for us. Make him join your horde. Drag him up above. Put him on guard duty outside in the sun. Don’t let him speak. He’s your puppet now.” Death strode away, apparently done with this business, shoving his way through the zombies and back toward the exit.
“Of course, my lord.” Ayres crooked his finger, making Viscarro lurch forward. His acolytes, clearly confused, began to move to follow their master, and Ayres sent his zombies to push them back. The apprentices raised their swords and axes, but the press of undead, unfeeling flesh pushed them back, and they were soon disarmed and cowering. Ayres cleared his throat. “As the vizier of the lord of death, I declare these vaults and all their contents the property of Death. Any of Viscarro’s apprentices who wish a place in the new regime may lay down their arms and remain below in an administrative capacity.” He glanced at Viscarro, who looked wholly like a dead thing now, except for his eyes, which were cold and furious and terrified. “Call out if you’re interested!”
Most of the apprentices were willing to switch allegiances. Those who weren’t provided more bodies for Ayres’s undead army. As they departed Viscarro’s catacombs, Ayres glanced at Booth, who walked along morosely, head down. “Feeling a bit useless, Booth?” Ayres said. “If you ever get tired of your pointless existence, say the word, and I’ll send you back to Hell, where you can do something useful, like be tormented for your crimes.”
“If I decide to depart this mortal coil, you will be the first to know, sir,” Booth said, but didn’t look up.
There was only one seat in the driver’s compartment, so Marla had to stand. The window showed only blackness, and despite the glare of the pale headlight, she couldn’t even see tracks before them, just nothingness. “So.” Marla tried not to look directly at the driver, staring into the darkness instead. “How long have you been driving this route?”
“Forever,” the driver said, three syllables carved in ice, doused in liquid nitrogen.
“Since before the invention of subway trains?” Marla tried for a light tone. She glanced at the driver again, and what she saw was so horrible it made her stomach clench and her head throb, so she looked away, and instantly forgot what he—what it?—looked like. The same thing happened every time she looked at him. She knew the human mind was incapable of truly remembering the sensation of extreme pain; it muted the memory in order to spare further agony. Perhaps looking at the driver was like that. Marla tried to keep her eyes firmly on the dark ahead.
“Not always a train,” the driver said. “Sometimes a boat. Sometimes a car. Sometimes a mule-cart. Sometimes only a guide on a trail leading up a mountain, or down from one.”
“How many passengers do you get?”
“Many. Always. I am ferrying hundreds at this moment, simultaneously, but not contiguously.” He paused. “You and the one in back are the only ones who are alive. And you are the only one in a long time who has come to talk to me for any reason other than pleading or screaming.”
Screaming. Yeah. She could understand that. “So, am I supposed to pay you two pennies or something?”
“That’s for a one-way trip. Round-trips cost more.”
Marla felt a chill. Every transaction with beings like this had a cost, and it was usually steeper than you hoped, and nonnegotiable. “Care to tell me how much this ticket will cost me?”
“Varies. But it’s payable on return. Maybe you won’t return. Then you won’t have to pay. I take people down alive, sometimes, like you. Some of them come back. Most don’t.”
“You’re cheerful, aren’t you?” Marla said, but the driver didn’t answer her.
A moment later, he said, “Door is opening.”
The door behind Marla clicked open again. She could take a hint. “Thanks for the ride.” She slipped out. The door closed behind her, and Marla was annoyed to find she was trembling a little. Death hadn’t bothered her as much, but he was pretending to be human, wearing a normal, if artificial, body. But that thing in the front of the train was undisguised, utterly and completely…whatever it was. A force of nature with a face. Not that she could remember its face. Which was probably for the best.
“What was he like?” Pelham asked.
Marla shook her head. “Terse. Not mean, exactly, but…he’s definitely seen it all.”
Pelham laughed. “He’s seen an attempted invasion of the underworld before?”
“I didn’t go into all that. I was afraid he might back the train up, or just stop here in the middle of nowhere and toss us out. I was hoping to ask him for directions to this throne room Cole mentioned, but I didn’t get the feeling he wante
d to be a tour guide, so I…ah…” Chickened out, she thought. “Decided discretion was the better part of wisdom.”
“Of course, Ms. Mason. What do you think we’ll see down there, when we arrive?”
Marla shrugged. “A gate guarded by a three-headed hellhound? An arch inscribed with the words ‘All Hope Abandon, Ye Who Enter Here’? A long line with a supernatural bureaucrat at the end of it ready to assign you to the sixteen chambers of heart-gouging or the upside-down prison? I’ve read about so many underworlds, Pelham, I’m a little terrified that we’re going to get a big syncretic sampler-pack underworld experience. Cole says our subconscious decides how we perceive the underworld, and my subconscious is primed with images of the underworld from pretty much every mythology you’ve ever heard of, and a few even I hadn’t heard of three days ago. There’s no telling what we’ll get. Maybe a little bit of everything.”
The train slowed, and they swung on their hand-grips. Bright lights poured in through the trapezoidal windows. “Guess we’ll find out now.” Somehow, she’d expected their first sight of the underworld to be dark.
“Underworld station,” the voice on the loudspeaker said. “Doors are opening.”
The doors hissed open, and Marla stepped out into the brightness, Pelham following. She shaded her eyes and looked around. And then, quite without intending to, she let out a low moan.
Because what she saw wasn’t any underworld she’d read about, not the cold city of Hel, not the howling chasm of Druj, not the fields of Elysium, not the cool shade of the cosmic tree in Yaxche.
This Hell was made from a place in Marla’s past, which was, after all, the only mythology she truly believed in.
