‘Business is a bit slower, I won’t lie, but it's the quality, not the quantity, isn't it?’
I nodded appreciatively. Always good to see a man taking pride in his work. Which reminded me, I had a job of my own to be getting on with.
‘Couldn’t trouble you for a lift, could I?’ I asked. ‘Got a bit of business that needs taking care of on the other side there.’
‘Are you kidding me?’ Death trilled. ‘I'd never have ended up here if it wasn't for you.’ He stepped aside and gestured for me to join him on the raft. ‘All aboard, buddy! Anchors aweigh!’
And with that, Death became my life raft.
18
As if breaking into Hell wasn’t stupid enough, now I had to breach damnation’s own slammer.
I thanked the Reaper for the boat ride and bid him farewell, apologising that I had nothing to tip him with. Story of my life, I told him, as I turned out my trouser pockets and shrugged.
As I stood on the south bank, drenched in The Castle’s foreboding shadow, I considered giving the Reaper a holler and hailing a return trip, but stayed firm. There was no turning back now. I’d come here to do a job, and I refused to let Prudence down now. Words are just wallpaper, after all, actions are the bricks and mortar of a man.
I surveyed the area, expecting to see a watchtower of some kind, but as far as I could tell, I wasn’t being spied on. I approached the prison warily until I arrived at a chain link fence surrounding the structure. I’d expected to have to finagle my way in using a spot of kleptomancy, but bypassing the fence was as simple as finding a rusted-out hole and squeezing through the gap. What was up with the security in this place? No guards, no locks? No wonder the South Souls had managed to go AWOL.
The no man’s land between the fence and the Castle was overgrown with a tall, red grass that swayed gently in the chill, night breeze. I dropped to a crawl and cut a path through the scarlet pasture, only to find myself streaked red from head to toe as the grass painted me in blood. If ever I met the Devil, I’d be sticking him with a hell of a dry cleaning bill.
I reached the outer wall of the prison and stopped. The entrance to the building was wide open, and yet I still couldn’t make out any guards. Crawling across the yard had been a waste of time I realised, No one was keeping watch on the place. Perhaps the Eyes I’d encountered were the Castle’s sole custodians: a skeleton crew, forced to divide their attention between keeping prisoners in line and rounding up escapees. I wouldn't be surprised, knowing the amount of demons that had crossed over to the city since the London Coven’s shields came down. Who’d stick around this place knowing they could be ripping it up in the Big Smoke?
Seeing as there was nothing to stop me walking right into the Castle, I stood up, wiped the blood from my face, and strolled through the front door. As suspected, no one stopped me. Getting into Hell's prison turned out to be about as challenging as getting into Hell itself. After all, who else but me would choose to do such a thing?
The inside of the Castle was like the TARDIS, if the TARDIS was a gigantic lockup for jailbirds. A vast honeycomb of cells housing thousands of doomed souls reached impossibly into the sky, higher than any building ought to go. Though the Castle was certainly a prison, the building was more a mausoleum than a penitentiary. Yes, the inmates were alive—or as alive as they could be in Hell, anyway—but they were kept interred in barred alcoves that looked less like prison cells than tombs; tiny nooks, not much bigger than the hunched bodies they contained.
As I drew closer to the colossal wall of prisoners, I began to understand how the Castle was able to operate without guards. Not only did the inmates require zero maintenance—a soul trapped in Hell needed neither food nor water—they were caged behind thick bars and clapped in irons, their ankles attached to weighty balls and chains, presumably until the place froze over. These men were going nowhere. This was a Daily Mail reader’s idea of prison; not some cushy little playground where cells were called “rooms”, and came with the latest PlayStation. No, these were medieval dungeons, where offenders served out forever sentences and the word “rehabilitation” was the stuff of a madman’s dream.
Seeing me walking the halls, the lags came to life as one, rattling their chains against the bars of their cages and screaming at the top of their lungs.
‘Save me!’
‘Please, you have to help!’
‘Get me out of here!’
‘I’ll give you anything!’
It sounded like Hell’s karaoke. I wanted to cover my ears to shield them from the racket, but I needed my hands to make one last check of my compass.
The needle was twitching like mad now. It showed me which direction my target’s cell was in, but not the elevation. The kid could be down on the ground or a mile in the air; there was no way to know for sure.
‘Where are you, kid?’ I mumbled, then shouted, ‘Prudence sent me!’
The racket suddenly went from a cacophony to the front row of an Iron Maiden concert. I thought my eardrums were going to blow from the din.
‘Me! Me!’
‘I’m the one you’re looking for!’
‘Get this thing open!’
‘I’m with Prudent!’
The prisoners were going berserk; wailing in desperation, crying uncontrollably, bashing their heads bloody.
All except for one.
Nine storeys up, a cell remained silent, its prisoner still and calm. I couldn’t make him out at this distance, but I knew it instinctively.
I had my man.
When you go to the pound to choose a new pet, you don’t take home the dog that howls and barks and foams at the mouth. No. The one you want is the quiet one. The one that sits obediently on its haunches, wet-eyed and willing you to give him a good home.
Doing my best to ignore the screaming inmates, I climbed nine flights of stairs to reach my target’s cell (again, murder on the old hammies). Inside, I saw a bearded prisoner, kneeling, and dressed in a grubby, cotton smock. His head was hung low, his hair draped in front of his face like a greasy waterfall. The time he’d spent in Hell had not been kind to him. What little I could see of his body was ravaged, like he'd aged twenty years. For a moment I wondered if I had the right cell after all, but then the prisoner looked so utterly pitiful, I almost didn’t care.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘I’ll have you out of there in a jiffy.’
I popped the lock on his cell door with a simple bit of kleptomancy and flung it open so I could get inside and release him from his bonds.
The moment I entered, it was like someone had turned down the world’s volume knob. I was inside a bubble of silence that cut off the noise of the other prisoners, muting them completely. It was a relief, but at the same time, deeply disconcerting. Even though my ears appreciated a rest from the cacophony, it brought home the true horror of these prisoners’ isolation. In here, brought to their knees and shackled for eternity, each inmate was completely alone. Hell wasn't red hot pokers, or bamboo shoots under the fingernails, or an eternity spent correcting spelling mistakes on YouTube videos. Hell wasn’t torture, Hell wasn’t other people. Hell was yourself, forever.
‘Show me your cuff,’ I said, and the prisoner obliged, presenting me with his ankle.
I magicked it open.
The iron hadn’t even struck the ground before I realised what I’d done.
‘Howya, Fletcher,’ said the prisoner.
I knew that voice.
It felt as though the floor beneath me had begin to tilt.
It was Father Damon O’Meara.
My murderer.
My former partner in the exorcist business; the Irish bastard who stole my woman and shoved me under a moving train. Father Damon O’Meara, stripped of his white collar and banged up in blazes.
Pardon the pun, but what the hell was going on here? Damon was meant to be doing time in Wormwood Scrubs; how did he manage to find himself shacked up in this place? And more to the point, out of the thousands of cells
I could have chosen, why had I wound up at his one? Had some quirk of fate led me to Damon’s door? To opening it up? To liberating my own killer?
Of course not.
This had all happened by design.
As I backed away from Damon, emotionally concussed, I began to piece it together.
The return ticket.
The Coyote had told me that the envelope it was sealed in smelled of my client’s perfume. I hadn’t been able to smell it as a ghost, but since I was corporeal here, I could get a whiff of it now.
I didn’t need to take the envelope out of my pocket to know who the perfume belonged to, but I put it to my nose anyway.
Sarah.
My ex-wife.
The woman who talked Damon O’Meara into putting me under the 11:45 to High Barnet, and disguised somehow—disguised by magic—hired me, her widowed husband, to rescue her dead beau from the jaws of Hell.
Prudence didn't just remind me of my ex-wife, she was my ex-wife.
It only made sense. Why would a sister dab perfume on an envelope meant for her brother? It could only be for a lover. Why hadn’t I seen that in the first place?
I saw Damon’s nostrils twitch as he caught the scent of Sarah’s perfume.
‘Always knew she’d come for me,’ he said, chuckling, ‘but Jaysis, I never expected she’d send you.’ He laughed so hard he folded at the midriff, like he'd been gut-shot.
‘What are you doing here?’ I stammered.
‘Came for a shiatsu massage and a pedicure,’ he replied. ‘What do ya think, ya eejit?’
There was really only one answer to my question: that he’d died in the clink and been re-sentenced in damnation. Life in the afterlife. Agony eternal. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke.
‘Got myself shanked in prison, didn’t I?’ he said, as if reading my mind. ‘But then ya’d know that if ya paid attention ta the land of the living.’
‘I pay plenty of attention.’
‘Oh yeah?’ He pointed at the photo paperclipped to the envelope I was holding. ‘Even I can tell ya that's yer man... whassisname... Justin Bieber.’
‘Who the fuck is Justin Bieber?’
‘Ya see what I mean?’ he replied. ‘You're divorced from humanity, Fletcher.’
‘What would you know about humanity?’ I spat.
‘A feck sight more than you’re about to,’ he replied with a wink.
He lunged forward, grabbed me by the lapels and landed me with a head butt that put me flat on my back.
‘Thanks for making the trip, Fletcher, but I’m gunna head on.’
The last thing I saw before I passed out was Damon reaching down to collect his ticket home.
19
Well, bugger me with a blowtorch.
When I finally woke up, I found myself alone in Damon’s locked cell, face down on the ground and shackled to his ball and chain. I’d really gone and done it this time. Fallen for the old bait and switch. What a mug. Suckered by my ex-wife… again. This did not reflect well on my detective skills. Not one bit.
I gritted my teeth and felt my anger spike like a witch's hat. Father O’Meara never did play by the book—least of all the Good Book—but this was a new low, even for him. He hadn’t even had the decency to kill me while I was unconscious, instead he’d chained me up and left me to rot here in his place. Jesus Christ, if I knew I’d end up eating this much shit, I’d have packed some breath mints.
Once again, I'd been sold a pup. Buffaloed. Catfished. A veritable menagerie of deception. I thought I’d been playing on the side of the angels, but all this time I’d been aiding and abetting the damned. Damon would be long gone by now; back in London and shagging my ex-wife no doubt. Naturally, my ticket home was no good – made out to “Mickey Mouse” I discovered, not Jake Fletcher (no middle name). I’d been carrying around a dud ticket from the start.
My ring finger suddenly began to itch like mad. Goddamn you, Sarah. Wasn’t there something in our wedding vows about honouring each other? Or should I have been more specific when I wrote them?
To have and to hold, to refrain from murdering, to not dispatch to Hell for the sake of rescuing your dead lover...
How had I managed to let Sarah get the better of me this time? She had brains and she had resources, but since when did she have magic? That’s the only way she could have pulled off that face-switch at The Beehive. The only way she could have convinced me she was Prudence (and didn’t I wish I’d shown some prudence now!).
That’s when I finally joined up the dots. Sarah didn’t have magic, she had a magic artefact. The Masque of Metamorphosis—the one stolen from Jazz Hands during the break-in at Legerdomain—Sarah must have used her money to hire that eaves to bust in and steal it. Huh. The two jobs I’d been working were tied together. I guess that solved The Mystery of the Purloined Masque, or half-solved it anyway, since the artefact was still in Sarah’s perfectly manicured mitts.
In the end, I could only blame myself. I’d fallen for another ice queen. The same ice queen, even! Like a dog returning to its own vomit, I never learned.
Now I was stuck. Imprisoned in Hell in the place of my own killer. I’ll tell you what, that was not on my vision board.
Fucked if I was giving up now though. I might have been stuck in Hell, but I had no intention of staying jammed up in a poxy prison cell for the rest of my life.
I placed a palm on the cage door, put the right words together, and channelled a spell into it that popped the lock and sent the door swinging. Piece of piss if you have the know of it. I could only hope that Satan kept his evil magicians in a more secure wing than this one.
Damon should have known better than to think a lock would keep me on the inside. I got into his cell in the first place, didn’t I? What was to stop me busting out again? One more spell to get the iron off my ankle and I’d soon be playing hooky. And who knew, maybe once I’d made it outside, I could figure out some way to give this plane the old Irish goodbye. There had to be some way out of Hell, surely? I’m not suggesting there’d be a departures office or anything, but some way.
I performed another unlocking spell on my ankle bracelet, but the iron stayed firm. I tried again. Focussed all my energy into it. Nothing. I peered inside the keyhole, only to discover that Damon had bunged the lock. No amount of kleptomancy was going to get the thing off now.
It could never be easy, could it?
Puffing and panting, I dragged the cumbersome ball and chain behind me, inch by agonising inch, out of the cell and all the way down nine, treacherous flights of stairs.
I tried everything to detach the ball. Tried picking the lock with a makeshift shim, tried breaking the chain with a rock, but nothing worked. I couldn’t even cradle the ball in my arms as I walked, as the chain connecting it to my ankle was too short. And so I wandered the wastes for days, dragging that bastard of a ball onto the Reaper’s ferry, underneath the wall, and all the way back to Camden Town. Back to the start line. Back to where I’d begun this futile quest.
It took weeks—months even—but time was no enemy to me here. Hell is a forever place. I limped on, mile after mile, moving so slowly that I felt like I was rowing upstream in a river of glue. I didn’t encounter anyone else along the way. The South Souls I’d met were done for, and Big Blue was probably chasing new prey since I’d dropped off his radar.
I had no idea why I was going where I was going, I just knew that I had to keep moving, and that I might as well head for familiar territory. Camden had been where I’d met Dizzy, after all, and I figured so long as I’d found him there, maybe there were other survivors in the area. Who knew, maybe even someone who could help me get off this toxic rock. A man could only hope.
I was dragging my ball and chain past the ruins of the Stables Market when I heard a man’s scream.
No way.
Again?
It was Dizzy’s voice, I was sure of it.
Just like before.
Just like when I’d arrived here and
saved him from the jaws of that giant maggot.
Dizzy. That little swine. Out there trying to hook another sucker, was he? Picking up a new mark and luring them into Big Blue’s beady firing line?
I wasn’t having that. Not a chance of it. I dragged my ankle wear around the corner, past a market stall covered in ash-smothered vape accessories and fidget spinners, and faced down my betrayer.
There was Dizzy, foot stuck in a maggot’s mouth, fighting for his life.
History repeating.
What was that thing anyway? Some kind of a prop? A special effect? It had looked real enough when I put a bullet in it the first time, but I was seeing it from a distance then. I’ll tell you what, if it ended up being a sock puppet, I was going to be livid.
Dizzy saw me. ‘Jake?’
The giant maggot made its way up to his thigh, tight as a boot, and bit down with its fanged mouth.
‘Help me!’ Dizzy pleaded.
There was no mistaking the anguish in his voice. Meryl Streep couldn’t have pulled off a performance that convincing, not for all the Oscars in Hollywood. The maggot was real, and it was chewing through Dizzy’s thigh like it was its last meal.
I wanted to tip my metaphorical cap and carry on walking, I really did. Dizzy had made his bed, let him lie in it. I couldn’t though. Couldn’t just leave him there to die, not even in Hell, where no one would judge me for it. Where I’d only be applauded for leaving that slippery little Judas to his fate.
‘Keep fighting!’ I shouted, as I did my best to get over there and pry the maggot off him.
The ball was too heavy though, and the distance too far. The best I could manage was to make do with a missile, so I picked up a large rock and launched it at the maggot. It went wide, so I scooped up another, but that one only succeeded in hitting Dizzy in the shoulder (hard to feel guilty about that). The last rock I sent the maggot’s way found its mark though, catching the thing right on the snout.
The creature recoiled, releasing its grip on Dizzy’s thigh and retreating back beneath the ground with an ear-splitting screech.
Uncanny Kingdom: An Eleven Book Urban Fantasy Collection (Uncanny Kingdom Omnibus 1) Page 76
