“What?”
I charged my right hand up and knifed it forward, spearing through the back of Lenny’s skull. Fragments of bone and hair exploded across the room and his eyes went dull for a moment. Anyone seeing us now would think I was wearing a grotesque puppet on my hand the wrong way. Lenny blinked once, twice, then his eyes looked towards my arm.
“Oh, now what?” he shouted. “Is that…are your fingers on my brain ? I’m going to vomit.”
The darkness shuddered and spiked, then quickly retracted back into Lenny’s skull. I felt it weaving a web around my fist inside his head, cocooning my hand against his brain.
“Someone’s coming to pick up the pieces, don’t worry. If you were quote-unquote alive , he’d never see you. I’ll put you back together later, stop whining.”
“What about you?”
“I stopped my heart when I started talking to you. I’ve been mostly dead for minutes.”
“Who’s coming?”
“Can’t say his name. That’s as good as calling him, and that gives him the advantage. I’ll have a hard enough time convincing him not to keep you as a trinket. I think he can pull Yaotl’s essence back from you. He’ll lead us through Dementia.”
“What do I have to do?”
“Don’t let him put his fingers in your mouth. By the way, do you like rum?”
“What? Why?” Lenny asked.
“Who dere?” a warbling growl floated down the hallway, borne on the sickly sweet smell of rum.
“Samedi!” I whispered.
“Someday what?” Lenny asked.
“Samedi. It’s French. Don’t say it loud, though. You know what? I’m just going to squeeze here,” I rooted my fingers around in Lenny’s brain until his jaw quivered and locked. His eyes rolled back. “I’ll wake you up again when we need you. I know you can hear me. So just listen and play along. Now where the hell is he? He must be drunk again…Baron, make yourself known!”
A ghostly voice whispered through us.
“Whatchoo got to drink, den?”
“Nothing to drink.”
“Guhway, den! No use feyya teday. Weest of tamm!”
“I didn’t say I’d come empty-handed! I’ve got something for you! If you have the strength to help us, that is.”
The room pulsed black three times and then fell completely dark. A pinprick of light appeared in the distance, bobbing towards us. It resolved into a bright white skull wearing a shining top hat. White gloves floated lower down in the dark, swaying like a two paper boats floating in a gutter and at one point, furiously flurried to close a zipper.
“Busy day today. Busy week. Alweez busy ennahmo’. You ‘spec me to take a break t’elp you when ye come wit empty hand, no drink fey me?” His Cajun accent always carried overtones of whatever nationality’s alcohol he’d been guzzling. Looks like it was Jamaican rum today.
The skull wavered for a second, the lower jaw working. The eye sockets glazed over and the space was filled with a rumbling, eternally deep belch. A half-second later, the skull tipped rapidly downwards, the top hat spiraling off to the side, as Baron Samedi vomited fiercely into the dark. A puddle spread around him, dull violet, smelling sweetly of rum with a touch of bile. Samedi was silhouetted against the glowing puddle. He appeared to be bare- chested, wearing only baggy pants and work boots. Lenny and I were still hovering in the center of the room as Samedi walked up below us, steps away.
“Come in wit ya, den.”
We dropped like stones to the tile floor below.
“Now den, why should I—” Samedi paused to vomit again, spreading a warm puddle of glowing rum all around us. “Why should I listen tee a word ye speak? T’ings get cut off down’ere quick leetly, no more women come in, no more music, noo more rum. ‘Fraid I had to drink it all meself ‘fore semboddy come in ‘ere and teek away what sip I hid. ‘Cause y’aint doin’ yer job! Cuzza you! Nahmoor singin’ deezies. All me greenery fadin’ now, right darlin’s?”
Small singing flowers had sprouted from the puddle below us, intoxicated and swaying. They quickly began to dry and turn brown, swooning into the murk below. Just standing in the swamp of Samedi’s sickness was getting me light headed. Even though he was angry, he exuded an aura of fun , and I had to fight against it.
“I need to get to Heaven in a hurry.”
“Best start preein, den!” He burst into a throaty laugh, pausing a few times to belch and dry heave. He slapped a hand on his knee. “Why you wan’ go out dat wey?”
“It’s not the why, it’s the how. I need to walk the Under/Under, fastest way to get there, right?”
Samedi’s face grew serious, pale. The swamp we were standing in grew deeper as he voided his bladder. His skull receded backwards, a sheen of mocha-colored flesh knitting closed over his face. He looked like a semi-studious young man now.
“Are you crazy?” His crazy accent was completely gone, replaced by an almost proper British tone with a trace of French lilt. “That was the last of my rum. I don’t want to deal with you sober !”
“We’re all in a tough spot right now.”
“Lucifer Morningstar. You expect to come down here and ask me to walk you through the craziest of crazies for nothing? For no rum? No women? No payment of any kind?”
“I’ve got something for you,” I said, holding up Lenny’s head, still impaled on my fist. There was a faint network of dark matter leaking from Lenny’s hair, knitted into a spidery cloud above us. I gestured to this and smiled at Samedi. “That’s more powerful than rum.”
“What is it?”
“Essence. From an old god. A very old god. When we’re done, you can keep it, you can bottle it.”
Samedi’s face grew steady. I could almost hear the gears clicking away in his brain, weighing odds, probabilities, risk and reward. He shook his head. “Not enough, not by half.”
“The Essence is the down payment. You’ll get us through safely.”
“Us?”
“I’m bringing friends with me.”
Samedi barked a laugh and shook his head.
“What friends?”
“Goliath the Philistine, Eve, Mother of Creation,” I coughed and said the next part under my breath, “and Monkey.”
“No. No. Everybody else in, fine, but not Monkey.”
“You guys still aren’t speaking?”
Samedi folded his arms. “See this nice white hat?” “You wouldn’t be you without it,” I said.
“I spent almost a thousand days cleaning Monkey’s shit out of my hat after his last visit. You ask him about our night with the Furies. He ruined the whole thing for me, and all so he could have them to himself. I had a nice little sandwich lined up for myself. Tisiphone had been begging me all night to let her try my hat on. I turn my back for two seconds, and Monkey fills my hat to the brim. Didn’t notice it until I put the damn thing on her head. It’s not every day you can get the Furies drunk, let alone into your private chambers.”
“It’s horrific. An affront to your very nature. But really, you don’t think you could make them fall for you again in a second? I doubt Maman Brigitte would be happy if she found out what you were up to…” His face took on a more skeletal pallor at the name of his wife, but warmed as he imagined the three lovely goddesses, then I added, “He’ll owe you more than one after this. Right? And if there’s one thing Monkey does, it’s pay back his favors. Right? I’ll extract a promise from him to grant you a favor, I’ll take you to the Furies and try to get you a date – alone! – and we’ll throw in a case of his Divine Peach rum. You won’t find a better deal than that anywhere, and for what? You take us on a short walk down this long hallway and across the Under/Under.” Samedi licked his lips, then shook his head. “All kinds of hinky things going on down there now. I haven’t seen a soul pass through here in ages, and there’s…rips in the hallway. Things falling through every day. Gods falling out, others clawing back in. That’s not an easy walk.”
“Okay. I was hoping it wouldn’
t come to this. You get my group across, you get us where we need to be, and you’ll get everything I just mentioned…and this!”
I raised Lenny up and grasped my former hand, wiggling from the stump of his neck.
“When you get us through, I’ll give you my handshake to seal the deal. And you can keep it.”
Samedi’s jaw dropped. He reached a finger out and caressed Lenny’s neck, drawing his finger down my former hand and squeezing my index finger. “What the Hell happened here? Who did you piss off?”
“Pick a name.” I pulled Lenny’s head free and splayed my new glowing fingers towards Samedi. “I don’t think I’ll need it anymore. You can do all kinds of Vodou or Voodoo or Vodun shit with it after we’re gone – as long as you don’t turn your magic towards me. You get a pound of my flesh, literally.”
“Devil’s hand. That’s some bad Lagniappe. You should have brought rum. I like you better when I’m drunk.”
Chapter Seventeen
I had Lenny on my glowing hand like a sock puppet, my fingers burrowed deep into his cerebral cortex. While Samedi prepared himself, I gathered the pieces of Lenny’s skull that were still floating around from my initial point of entry and popped them back together, making a nice little cap I could stick back on him when this was all done. I’d spent the better part of a few minutes rooting around in Lenny’s brain looking for my essence as well. If he really was the battery keeping my powers alive, this would be a good chance to get them back. But it was a mess in there. There was no separating the ingredients, it was one powerfully damned cocktail coursing around in there.
Samedi pulled a chicken bone necklace from his pocket and wrapped it around Lenny’s head, whispering a short incantation into Lenny’s ear. “When you wake up, you’ll wish you’d brought rum with you. Let that be a lesson to you for next time. Me? I’m going to distill this, drink it down, get hammered, and then lead you into certain destruction.”
“You want him awake for this?” I asked.
“It would be more fun,” he said.
“Lenny, you there?” I shook his head roughly.
“Grrgl?” Lenny gurgled. His eyes bulged and focused on the veil of dry chicken bones dangling before him.
“I’m going to ease up on your vocal cortex, okay?” I loosened my fingers.
“I hate you so much,” Lenny said. “Get your finger out of my brain. Why do I smell strawberries? Am I going to have a scar? Why is—ack!”
I pinched down. “Speak when spoken to, Lenny.” I released his voice again, confident he’d stay mum.
Samedi folded his right hand into a loose fist, upturned with his thumb resting on top of his palm. He touched the four points of a cross on Lenny’s face, then tapped his thumb hard on Lenny’s nose and drew his hand back.
“Ow! By dose! I hade you muggerfuggers! Juss leebe me alode!” Lenny shouted.
“Have to break a few eggs for this recipe, Lenny. Just be quiet and let the man work. Look!”
The tip of Samedi’s thumb was covered in a sheen of the black substance and a thin strand of it looped and sagged back into Lenny’s nostril.
“Let’s go fishing,” Samedi said, jamming his thumb into his mouth and sucking gently on the strand of dark matter. His pupils began to shrink and then his eyes literally rolled back into his head. The flesh peeled back from his face, and his top hat began to glow a pristine white. “Oooh-Ah! Thas’ the stuff righ’chair!”
I drew Lenny’s head back away from him, breaking the strand of dark matter. “A little at a time. I know how well you can hold your liquor, but we need you somewhat sober to get us across the Under/Under.”
“Where’s yer frenz, den?” he asked, cocking his hat. He spat on the wall, and a small hole opened where his saliva landed. As it ran down the surface, the wall unzipped like a jacket, flapping down and revealing Monkey, Eve, and Goliath standing amidst the trees at the Brink of Insanity. The good thing about being on the journey we’d undertaken, seeing an interdimensional portal tear open in front of their eyes didn’t seem to startle them too much. I know how to pick a good crew.
I looked at Samedi. “Nobody else dies on this journey. We get to the river, I fill up on souls. When I finish solving this problem, we meet up again and you get payment in full. That’s the bargain.”
“Yar no fun, man, no fun ’t’all,” he slurred. “ Allons-y , den! Errbody inside! Even you, coo-yôn !”[28] This last bit was directed at Monkey.
Monkey smiled and slapped Baron Samedi on the shoulder on his way inside. “Just like old times, huh? You and me and a walk through Hell. A regular Cochon de Lait , huh?”[29]
“Meh,” Samedi replied, turning his back on Monkey and proceeding down the hallway. “You leave dat bayou talk outcha mouth. Sound like filth comin’ from you. Keep up, dearies, allons-y ! Stay ‘longside er rot in’ell, ‘sno difference to me.”
Samedi stretched his arms out. The walls dropped away from us, leaving a checkered marble floor stretching to infinity. Far on the horizon, a golden speck glowed.
“Dat’s the gol fer us,” he said.
“Looks easy enough,” Goliath said.
Samedi smiled. “I’m jest givin y’all a look at it…got ta walk ‘tru dis to get dere…” He snapped his fingers and the walls reappeared far on the horizon, twisting, pulsing and racing towards us. As they got closer, there were glimpses of fire, water, monsters, and rifts. This would not be an easy walk. “T’aint gon’ be dat bad, ‘do. I know summuz’ll getcha tru’…follow!”
“Samedi, is that essence doing anything for you? Telling you about Yaotl?”
“Can’t do nuttin’ wit it ‘til I get the equipment and time,” he said. “I know dis shit’s got me head eekin, ain’t touchin’ it ‘gain ‘til I can do it right, to konprann ?”[30]
He’d forced the essence into an empty glass rum bottle that was jammed in his belt. It was moving with a cadence and rhythm that had nothing to do with his walking.
“Is there anyone else down here that might have dealt with him in the past? Quetzalcoatl, what’s that guy been up to?”
“E’yain’t don eer, s’all I know,” Samedi said.
I traced a finger across my coat pocket, where I’d slipped the Mirror of Smoke. Nothing now, good or bad. Just a solid hunk of nothing. I reached back into Lenny’s skull and effectively rendered him comatose. Hopefully if he didn’t know where he was, whoever might be looking for him would have the same trouble. I perched him on Goliath’s shoulder, and Monkey scampered along beside us. He’d race ahead sometimes, only to come running back to report that there was nothing unusual ahead.
Samedi took another step and stumbled. He grumbled something unintelligible and his skull began to glow intensely bright, brighter than anything I’d seen from him. I held up a hand for everyone to stop walking. Someone was about to manifest. I looked around for an alcove, a cave, anything to get this light out of the main tunnel before it attracted unwanted attention.
Samedi bellowed a rum-soaked laugh and then his voice died in a shrill squeak as a ring of fire formed above his head. “MORNINGSTAR,” a voice bellowed. “BEHOLD, AN ANGEL OF THE—”
“Shut up, skip the protocol, who is this?”
“I AM THE ANGEL PHALEG, WARLORD AND RULER OF THE—”
“Zip it, pal!” Goliath barked, dragging Samedi/Phaleg across the hall. “There’s all kindsa bad thing watchin’ us, you wanna maybe keep it down.”
“What’s going on?” I asked him.[31]
“What progress have you made?”
“Do I look like I work for you? None of your business, that’s what progress I made.”
Goliath did his best to hide Lenny in his beard.
“It’s all right, G,” I entwined my hand in Lenny’s hair and thrust him at Phaleg. “Care to explain this?”
Phaleg’s face fell. “Lenny? What has happened to you?” He reached a hand towards Lenny’s head, brushing his cheek, running his hands through his hair. “It’s…missing…where…”
Phaleg’s face cleared, he swallowed and nodded. His hands patted his sides and came to rest on the rum bottle full of the obsidian essence. He gripped the neck hard and held it up.
I plucked it from his hands and tossed it to Monkey, who scampered up the wall a bit. “No drinking. Samedi must be pushing back against you, so let’s get down to business. Lenny was playing you for a sucker. Did you know he was Aspen’s boytoy?”
Phaleg shook his head, unable to find the words. His eyes started leaking those honey-smelling angel tears.
“He set this whole thing in motion. He stole the Mirror of Smoke from Earth. He brought it into Heaven. He caused the breach, all to get her back.”
Phaleg’s jaw worked for a bit, and he raised his hand, towards the bottle again.
“What’s happening up there right now?” I asked. “The Brothers are on their way to the Gates, and they’ll be there soon with the girl. You need to alert Michael.”
“I couldn’t!” Phaleg wailed.
“Hey, I know it’s your ass on the line, but sometimes you have to face the music. Everything hinges on this. Just admit what you did. Worst he’ll do is kick your ass for it later. Hell, he’ll be too excited about the prospect of war in the long run. He’ll probably thank you!”
Phaleg nodded. “I’ll make him aware.”
“We’re dealing with Yaotl, let him know that. Get the research team moving, do what you need to do.”
Angel Falls Page 18
