Down in Flames

by P. W. Catanese

  Donny’s hands crunched into fists. “Don’t you think you should have told me what I was there for?”

  She snickered. “You were so nervous to begin with, I figured you’d never do it if I told you that part. Come on. That was a rousing success! It was boffo! Quit being such a wet blanket.”

  Donny’s simmering anger finally erupted. He flung his arms wide, waving them in the air as he ranted. “I’m a wet blanket because you used me as bait and didn’t even tell me, and because you were mean to me when I told you I didn’t want to go up there, and because it took you forever to show up after I called for help, and because I almost got eaten by a monster!”

  The good humor drained from Angela’s face as she listened. She put her hands on her hips. “Well. That’s a lot to respond to. First, I’m sorry you were such a chicken that I couldn’t tell you the whole plan, but that’s part of our deal. I saved your life, and you do whatever I ask.”

  Donny opened his mouth to respond, but she stuck two fingers near his face to silence him. “Second,” she went on, “I was stern with you because you weren’t obeying, and you were embarrassing me in front of the guy I needed to impress. A guy who, by the way, doesn’t think humans should be talking back to archdemons. And third, I got there as fast as I could, because everyone had backed off to make the monster think it was safe to come out.”

  Donny’s jaw trembled. “I could have died,” he said hoarsely.

  “You could have died in Brooklyn,” she shot back. “You could have died in Havoc’s lair. But someone keeps saving you, remember? Golly, I wonder who? Oh, that’s right: it’s Angela Obscura! And yet you’re ungrateful and frankly kind of whiny about it, and now you’ve put a rotten ending on a great day. So I cordially invite you to stop talking for a while. Got it?”

  Donny hung his head. “I thought we were friends,” he said quietly.

  He was staring at the ground but heard her coming toward him. She wrapped her arms around him and lifted him off the ground in a hug. “Aw, Cricket,” she cooed into his ear. “Look at your sad little face. We are friends. The best of friends. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. But sometimes you just have to do what I ask.” She lowered him to the ground and put her hands on his cheeks. “Listen, buddy, I get a little overheated now and then. That’s part of what I am. Don’t take it personally, okay? Come on. Calm down. I can hear the breath whistling out of your nose; that can’t be good.”

  Donny shut his eyes, waited a moment, and then opened them again. “Okay.”

  “Super! Now let’s get out of this place before moss grows on us.” She linked her arm in his, and they walked up the ramp, side by side. “It could have been a lot worse, you know,” she said. “That could have been a titan imp instead of a water imp.”

  “A titan imp?”

  “Oh yes. They were the biggest things in the pit. Absolutely massive. Insanely strong. Dark purple with yellow spots. Claws like garden spades. Teeth like—”

  “Great,” Donny interrupted. “Let’s never hunt one of those.”

  They walked quietly for a while, until she gave his elbow a tug and pulled him close to her side. “Cricket,” she said into his ear. “Tell me it’s all right between us. Are we good?”

  A little snort of laughter shot out of Donny’s nose. It wasn’t that he found it funny. It was just so unnerving, so baffling, how she could turn his emotions upside down, inside out, and then back again with just a few words and gestures. There were buttons in his brain that only she could find and push. It was impossible to stay truly angry when she was smiling at him and holding him close by her side. In its way, her charm was every bit as powerful as her psychic beam of fear.

  “We’re good,” he said quietly. But inside his skull, a little voice whispered a quiet warning.

  Maybe not, though.

  Just be careful.

  CHAPTER 13

  They were on the street near Angela’s pillar when a chariot approached. It was pulled as usual by a pair of runner imps with long legs and horsey faces. Angela and Donny stepped aside to let the chariot pass. As it clattered by, the single rider inside shouted to the runners: “Whoa! Stop right here!”

  Before the chariot even rolled to a halt, the rider leaped over the side and jogged back toward Donny and Angela, his arms flung wide. “Angela Obscura, the one and only!”

  “Chimera, is that you?” cried Angela.

  Chimera’s face was divided by a line that snaked down the middle of his forehead, nose, mouth, chin, and neck. On the right side, he had the pale flesh of a human, and on the left, the scales of a demon. He wore a pinstriped vest and baggy high-waist pants that might have been in fashion in the 1920s. His shoes were shiny and black with gold buckles. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled to his elbows, revealing a human arm on the right and a demon arm with clawed fingers on the left.

  Chimera clapped his hands. “You remember! How long has it been?”

  “Years and years!” Angela said. “I’ve barely seen you since the war. You’re so far from home. What brings you to this neck of the underworld?”

  Chimera rose on his tiptoes and tugged at the pockets of his vest with his thumbs. “An invitation to join the Infernal Council! I was apparently next in line for Havoc’s seat. I’m not convinced that I’m worthy, but I suppose I will accept. Actually, I am on my way to meet Formido and tell him the news. It was out of my way, but I took the road past the Pillar Obscura, hoping I might see you. I was disappointed that you weren’t home, but here you are!”

  “Here I am,” Angela said. Her gaze narrowed, and she crossed her arms. “So, you’re joining the council. Might I inquire where you stand on the issue of the Pit of Fire?”

  Chimera shook his head and chuckled. “I knew you’d ask.” He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Don’t be angry at me, Angela. I’m the traditional type. In my humble opinion, the pit should return, and the souls should be marched into the flames once more.”

  Angela’s face reddened. She wagged a finger, ready to rant, but Chimera spoke first. “Hold on a moment. I may favor the pit, but I’m nothing like Havoc. I believe in the rulings of the council. As long as it favors the current solution and the Caverns of Woe, I will abide by that decision. You have my word on that. But either way, I hope we can discuss this like reasonable beings.”

  “Humph,” Angela said, pressing her lips tight together.

  “Please, Angela. For just a moment try to see things through the other side’s eyes,” Chimera said. “Many of us feel that overseeing the suffering of the dead in the pit is our one true purpose. Even after all these years our hearts ache with longing when we remember the flames. You may not crave it, but we do.” He patted her on the shoulder. “My point is, I think both sides can learn from each other, as long as we can talk with open minds.”

  “My mind might be more open if you weren’t so completely wrong,” she replied.

  Chimera flashed a wide grin, with square white teeth on one side and yellow fangs on the other. “Ha! You’re a tough one, Angela Obscura, but I’ll soften you up yet. I have compromises in mind that I don’t think have even been proposed until now.”

  Angela squinted so hard, her eyes practically disappeared. “Compromises?”

  “Yes! What if we sorted the dead? The worst of the worst go to the pit, and the rest to the Caverns of Woe.”

  “No way,” she said. “Not a soul.”

  Chimera nodded. “No? Try this on for size. We torment the dead with fire only for the first hundred years. Then they can go to your caverns.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Fifty years.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “How about twenty-five?”

  “How about zero?”

  Chimera tilted his head back and laughed. “Oh, Angela. It may take a century, but I’ll wear you down eventually! I’m a very patient archdemon.” He turned his gaze toward Donny. “Now, who is this companion of yours?”

  “This is Donny,�
�� Angela said. “My personal assistant or my aide-de-camp or something along those lines.”

  Donny had to clear his throat before he could speak. “Hello,” he said.

  “And a very good day to you,” Chimera replied. He held out his human hand, and Donny shook it. Chimera’s eyes widened, and he took Donny’s hand between both of his. “Your hand is lukewarm. I took you for a dead soul, but that’s not the case at all! You are a living mortal child. That’s a rare sight down here. How refreshing!”

  Donny wasn’t sure how to respond. “Yes, sir” was all he could come up with, followed by “Thank you, sir.”

  Chimera chuckled and released Donny’s hand. He leaned over and put his hands on his knees to get a closer look at Donny’s face. “And what a pleasant, polite young mortal you are. Consider me fascinated! Might we all have dinner some evening? I’m sure you have all sorts of stories to share about your life in the mortal realm.”

  “Sure, let’s make that happen,” Angela said. She put an arm around Donny’s shoulders. “We have to move along, but apparently I’ll see you around.”

  “No doubt you will!” Chimera said. He kissed Angela on the cheek and then shook Donny’s hand again. “Oh—Donny, let me show you a trick.”

  Uh-oh, Donny thought. He’d seen unpleasant tricks from the denizens of Sulfur before.

  Chimera stepped back, took a deep breath, and plugged the human side of his nose with his human thumb. Then he shot air out the other nostril, producing a long plume of bright yellow fire.

  Angela rolled her eyes, but Donny let out a whoop of laughter. “Ha! That’s amazing!”

  “I have lots more where that came from,” Chimera said, winking his human eye. He hopped onto his chariot. Chimera waved as the chariot rumbled away, and Donny waved back.

  “I kind of like him,” Donny said.

  “What do you mean like him?” Angela snapped. “Did you not hear the part about the pit?”

  “Yeah, I know you don’t agree about that. Neither do I. I know how terrible that fire feels. And I don’t want my dad ending up in there for even a minute. But Chimera was a lot nicer to me than Ungo Cataracta was. Also, he seems pretty reasonable. You might even be able to change his mind.”

  She sniffed at that notion. “This is politics, Donny. Nobody changes their mind about anything.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Donny was at the Pillar Obscura, deep into a game of Trouble with Tizzy and Nanny. Donny popped a five, and the obvious move was to land on Nanny’s peg and send her back to the start. But as he reached for his game piece, Nanny bared her sharp, crooked teeth and growled.

  “It’s just a game, Nanny,” he told her. “And remember, Angela said you’re not allowed to bite me.” Tizzy held her stomach and giggled.

  Before Donny could finish the move, a strange booming sound echoed through the windows carved in the pillar. It was like a foghorn, with a note almost too deep to hear.

  “What was that?” Donny asked, lifting his head. He wished Angela were there, but she was a mile away at the latest meeting of the Infernal Council.

  “I don’t know,” Tizzy said. The sound came again, even louder. Donny felt the noise humming in his bones. Tizzy grimaced and stuck her fingers in her ears.

  “I want to go see,” Donny said. He ran for the front door, pulled it open, and stepped outside. From that elevated point he saw over the lower buildings that surrounded the pillar. The main avenue was below. Donny spotted Zig-Zag striding quickly along the road.

  “Zig-Zag!” he shouted. Both faces looked up. “What’s going on?”

  “The Ferryman King is coming,” Zag called back.

  “Is that bad?” asked Donny.

  “Momentous is a better word,” said Zig.

  “His appearances are rare,” said Zag. “He hasn’t been seen for years.”

  “Are you going to see him?” asked Donny.

  “Yes. We think he has come to speak to the council,” Zig said. “But we are curious about the reason.”

  “Can I come with you? Please?”

  Zig and Zag glanced at each other and exchanged a few quiet words. Then both heads nodded. “Of course. But quickly!”

  CHAPTER 15

  Hurry, to the river!” said Zag.

  Donny followed as they walked briskly toward the River of Souls. “I didn’t know the ferrymen had a king,” he said. He had watched those gaunt, ominous beings who manned the barges full of dead souls. He’d even had his own close encounter with one, when he used a barge as a shortcut across the river in an emergency, and he had been fortunate to escape that maneuver alive.

  “They do have a king,” Zig said. “And it’s been the same king for as long as there have been ferrymen.”

  “He may be the oldest being in the underworld, apart from Lucifer,” said Zag.

  “If Lucifer is even still alive,” said Zig.

  “Don’t be a half-wit,” said Zag. “He is only in hiding or slumbering or wandering the mortal realm.”

  “You take too much on faith,” said Zig. “Besides, if I am a half-wit, does that make you the other half?”

  “The greater half!”

  Donny knew that Lucifer had vanished around a hundred years before and that nobody knew where he was. It was a source of much debate in Sulfur. He also knew that if he didn’t change the subject in a hurry, Zig and Zag would argue for hours.

  That thundering horn blasted again, echoing off the walls and ceiling of Sulfur. Every flying creature was pinwheeling through the air and screeching above, driven into a frenzy. Zig-Zag abandoned their debate and broke into a run, something Donny had never seen before. Zig and Zag had a hard time coordinating their movements at this speed. On Zig’s side, the knee rose comically high in the air with each step. On Zag’s side, the arm pumped out of rhythm. Donny jogged beside them, prepared to steady them if they stumbled.

  It felt good to run again. The smoke damage that had compromised his lungs when he’d first met Angela, because of the fire in Brooklyn, had finally healed.

  They made it to the river before Zig-Zag stumbled or passed out, and mounted one of the high arching bridges to catch a glimpse of the Ferryman King’s barge. Donny saw it, not far from where they stood. It looked similar to the usual barges, with a huge skull mounted at the prow and a broad flat deck, but there was a tall structure in the center of the craft that the others did not have.

  Zig and Zag each held a hand above an eye and squinted at the barge.

  “It’s stopping!” cried Zag. “Near the ruins of the Council Dome!”

  “He’s going to speak to the council!” cried Zig. “Hurry—let us go!”

  • • •

  Along the length of the River of Souls, ports were carved into the stony shores. At each port, a short, wide flight of stairs led from the river to the cavern floor. The Ferryman King’s ship rested in one port now, gently bobbing in the current.

  Now that they were getting close, Donny saw the difference between this craft and the rest of the fleet. There were no dead souls on board—only a crew of the tall, gaunt ferrymen. All the ferrymen looked terribly old, but these seemed even more ancient. Their dark robes were in tatters, shredded at the sleeves, exposing arms that looked like nothing but bone and sinew wrapped in mummified, leathery skin. Donny knew from experience that, while the ferrymen might look frail, they were amazingly strong. During his encounter, he’d been tossed from a barge onto the shore with little more than a flick of a forearm.

  The crew was armed with scythes right out of the classic depiction of the Grim Reaper: crooked wooden staffs with curving blades that looked as big as the crescent moon. Heavy chains were looped around their waists, and from those chains hung spheres of dark glass in metal cages, plugged with glass stoppers. The spheres glowed with some kind of twinkling inner light.

  In the center of the ship, instead a wide-open space where a crowd of souls could stand, there was a set of tiers leading to a taller deck, like a wedding cake made of blackened
wood. On top was a throne that seemed to be constructed of gigantic yellowed bones. Upon it sat the tallest, ghastliest, most ancient ferryman of all. Unlike any of his brethren, his hood was pushed back to reveal his mummified head. The head was so big, Donny could hardly believe the neck didn’t snap under its weight. It was more skull than face, with only a few scraps of skin still clinging to it. He had gaping holes for eyes, and a crater of jagged bone for a nose. The lower jaw was enormous and pointed like a beard. There were only wisps of gray hair on his bony head. The ears had withered and shredded like the petals of a dead flower. On his head was a bony crown, studded with dark gemstones. He was so lanky that his knees, poking up under his long robe, rose nearly to the level of his chest.

  Imps were running from every direction and collecting in crowds on both sides of the river. Usually these strange creatures were loud and rowdy, but now they stood quietly, peering at the barge and keeping their distance, out of respect and fear. Donny and Zig-Zag found a gap in the crowd and stood among them.

  “Why is the Ferryman King just sitting there?” Donny asked.

  “The council will come to him,” said Zag.

  “Huh,” Donny replied. He was surprised. That said a lot about the pecking order of Sulfur. He looked over his shoulder, toward the Council Dome.

  The dome itself wasn’t there anymore. Once, it had stood atop a small hill. But then it had been crushed under a falling stalactite as big as an ocean liner. That was the work of the traitorous council member Havoc, who was currently imprisoned by the survivors of the sabotage.

  The Infernal Council still met in the same spot, but for the time being they sat on the fractured blocks of stone. Construction had already begun nearby on the new dome, which would certainly not be located beneath another of those massive stalactites. The imps and demons who had been working on it had rushed to see the Ferryman King as well.