Bring Out Your Dead (11 page)

“
Take a number and join
the queue,” I said, praying Noelle would forgive me for pushing her
to the middle of a list of things I needed to do before all hell
broke out.

“
What now?” Tim asked,
wandering over as I punched in a phone number. “Are you ordering
dinner? I admit I’m a bit on the hungry side, and William there
keeps nagging about fading away to nothing if he doesn’t get some
sustenance.”

“
I’ll order some dinner
for everyone—vegetarian dinner—before I leave,” I told him,
glancing at the clock. It wasn’t too late for the one director I
knew to be in the office.

“
Leave?” Tim frowned.
“Sebastian said that no one was to leave the suite except the
Guardian you were going to call. He didn’t mention anything about
you going off on your own.”

“
It doesn’t matter,” I
said, waving a hand as I waited for the director to pick up the
phone. “You’ll all be safe enough once I’m gone. I’m just going to
the Society and back. Hello, River? Ysabelle Raleigh here. I wonder
if you have a few minutes you could spare me. Fabulous. I’ll be
there in about twenty minutes, all right?”

I hung up, intending to give a few commands
of my own, but when I turned to face everyone, I was met with a
wall of unhappy faces.

“
Erm…” I said, a bit
surprised by the solidarity of a group of people who had so little
in common. Everyone, from Damian clutching William’s head by his
hair, to Sally, who was supposed to support me in all that I did,
stood in a line with their arms crossed over their chests,
identical frowns on their faces. “I take it that plan doesn’t meet
with your satisfaction.”

“
Sebastian said no one was
to leave,” Tim repeated, a particularly obstinate look on his
face.

“
Yes, but—”

“
He said the demon would
grab you if you left,” Damian added.

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Since when do
you care what Sebastian says?”

The boy gave one of his shrugs. “Nell says
we should give him a chance to get over what was done to him, so
maybe he’s not as bad as Papa said he was. He likes you.”

I was touched by the approval inherent in
his statement. “Does that mean you like me, as well?” I couldn’t
help asking, half teasing him.

His dark blue eyes considered me for a
minute. Then just as I knew they would, his shoulders twitched in a
careless shrug. “You don’t stink like other Beloveds. I like
that.”

Sally snorted as I was put so soundly into
my place.

“
We shall be grateful for
small favors, then,” I told Damian, and considered the line of
people bent on keeping me from my purpose. “I suppose a promise
that I won’t go anywhere but the Society headquarters and straight
back wouldn’t merit me parole?”

Six heads shook a negative answer (William
appeared to be dozing despite being held up by his hair).

I sighed. “Very well, you can come with me
then, although how we’re all to fit into one taxi is beyond
me.”

There were a few halfhearted protests, but
ten minutes later we emerged from the hotel onto the damp pavement
outside the hotel, both William’s head and Sally in their
respective travel bags.

“
Stop giving me that
look,” I told Tim in a quiet voice as the hotel doorman waved a
taxi up to us. “I told you that I’m in no danger with all of you
around. It’s not as if the demon is going to spring out of nowhere
and capture me.”

Tim opened his mouth to reply, but I never
heard the words he spoke. The demon that I’d seen earlier that day
ripped open a hole in the fabric of being, wrapped both arms around
me, and jerked me backward, away from reality as I knew it.

Chapter Eight

The voices were the first thing I noticed.
They were oddly familiar.

“
Is everyone here? Did we
all make it?”

“
I’m here, although I’m
fair starving to death. Someone lend me a hand. Or a foot. A thigh
or two wouldn’t go amiss, either.”

“
I am
ici
, as well.
Zut alors
!
Qu’est-ce le
hell?”

“
Papa says they prefer
Abaddon to hell,” a childish voice said. I recognized it
immediately as Damian.

“
Do you think Ysabelle is
all right? She is very still.”

That had to be Tim. I was warmed by the
concern in his voice, but a bit puzzled by my eyelids’ apparent
inability to move. They felt as if lead weights had been anchored
to them.

“
Is she dead?” William’s
voice was shamelessly hopeful and not in the least bit muffled,
which meant Damian must have taken him out of the carrier bag.
“Dibs on her if she is.”

“
It would take a lot more
than a demon yanking me through the fabric of existence to kill
me,” I answered without thinking. A moment later I sat bolt
upright, staring around wildly as my memory returned. “The
demon!”

“
It went bye-bye
avec
my boot on
its
derierre
,”
Sally told me, hovering over me with a worried look in her eyes.
“
Vous
okay?”

“
Yes, I’m fine.” I got to
my feet, feeling a bit dizzy by the experience of having been
pulled through to who knew where. “Erm…would someone like to tell
me why you’re all here? I don’t seem to remember the demon grabbing
everyone, and the last I saw of you lot, you were about to get into
a taxi.”

“
We came with you.” Sally
patted me carefully, as if looking for broken bones or injuries.
“All right,
vous
are not hurt.”

“
Thank you for that
checkup, Dr. Sally.”

She sniffed and tossed her
hair. “
C’est
my
job, if you recall.”

“
For which I’m very
grateful,” I said, giving her a little hug. “Now that explains how
Sally got here, but what of the rest of you?”

Damian adopted an innocent look that was
wholly at odds with his character. “Sally had a hold of me when she
grabbed you. I had William.”

“
When I saw them hauled
away with you and the demon, we jumped in after you all.” Tim
beamed happily at me. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him he
had probably signed his death warrant, but I couldn’t reward such
an act of selflessness and bravery with a dire
prediction.

“
Where exactly are we?” I
asked, looking around. We seemed to be in some sort of dimly lit
cave alcove. Large outcroppings of rock obscured the view, but odd
patterns of light danced high on the wall behind me. My stomach
tightened as I moved to the entrance of the alcove, stepping clear
of the rock.

Fire. There was fire everywhere. Not just
little campfires, the sort I’d learned to act completely normal
around…no, this cavern was filled with great pools of fire, burning
from some unknown underground source. Snaking between the great,
billowing flames, a stone walkway meandered to the far end of the
cavern, where a plateau held what appeared to be an office,
complete with desk, chairs, bookcases, and a couple of filing
cabinets.

“
Oh, God’s mercy, we’re in
Abaddon,” I said as my lungs began to struggle for air.

“
No, although I suppose
it’s easy to see why you could imagine that.”

I whirled around at the mild voice that
spoke behind me, my hand already at my throat. The sight of the
flames, the smell of the smoke, threatened to overwhelm me.
Desperately, I fought to keep under control the panic that welled
within me. “Who are you?”

“
I am Simon,” the demon
said. It appeared in human form, that of a young man with a weak
chin and blond goatee. The demon waved its hand toward the narrow
path. “I am the steward to Asmodeus. I have never met a
tattu
before—it is a
great honor to have you here.”

“
Where is here if not
Abaddon?” I asked.

“
This is my lord
Asmodeus’s home. He prefers this design to the mundane houses, but
technically, we are within the boundaries of London.”

“
This is all just an
illusion, then?” Tim asked, looking around the huge, smoke-filled
cavern.

The demon hesitated a moment. “In a manner
of speaking, yes. This location is actually in a house, but it has
been altered to an appearance more pleasing to my lord.”

“
Damian, come stand by
me,” I said softly, holding out my hand for him.

Damian rolled his eyes, picked up William’s
head, and reluctantly joined me. I wrapped my arm around his
shoulders, giving the demon a firm look to let it know I would
defend the child at all costs.

“
I wonder, what does demon
taste like?” William’s head asked no one in particular.

“
Duck, I’m told,” Simon
answered, then gestured again toward the path. “If you please? Lord
Asmodeus is most eager to meet you.”

I glanced at the huge pits ablaze with the
fires of hell, and shook my head. “Illusion or not, I’m staying
right where I am.”

Simon tipped its head to look at me. “Afraid
of the fires, are you? That’s not good. That’s not good at
all.”

“
How so?” I asked, one eye
on the nearest conflagration. I felt sick to my stomach at its
nearness, my psyche shrieking to get out of there by any means
possible, but I couldn’t leave Damian and my friends.

“
I believe I’ll let my
lord answer that. If you please?”

I took a deep breath. “You can tell Asmodeus
that I’m not going anywhere, and if he wants to talk to me, he can
just get his pox-riddled behind over here to—”

A noise unlike anything I’ve ever heard in
this world or the next shook the cavern, echoing off the high stone
walls, doubling and tripling on itself. The flame pits erupted in
bonfires that nearly touched the ceiling, the fire and horrible
scream almost enough to bring the entire structure down upon us. I
pulled Damian behind me, trying to shield him as I backed up
against the wall and prayed the glamour or whatever was being used
to create this illusion was strong enough to protect the physical
world from this nightmare.

Eventually, the noised died down, and the
flames dropped to their normal level. My hands shook as I dusted
off Damian, making sure he wasn’t injured before turning to face
the demonic steward.

Simon glanced nervously toward the distance
corner of the cave. “I respectfully suggest you not anger my lord
again. He does not take well to being told what to do.”

“
He can bite my shiny
pink—”

Sally shut up with a look from me, but she
muttered several rude threats in her odd mixture of English and
mangled French. I examined my options quickly and decided that I
really didn’t have a choice.

“
Fine. I will go speak to
Asmodeus. But he must first release my friends.” Sally, Tim, and
Jack all protested, but I held up a hand to stop them, keeping my
gaze firmly on Simon. “I will go just as soon as my friends are
released, but not before.”

I half expected another roar from the demon
lord, but to my surprise, Simon smiled. “But, my good lady, your
friends are not prisoners here. They may leave at any time.”

“
They may?” I blinked a
couple of times, then glanced at the fire pits. There had to be a
trick somewhere. “Very well. You will escort them out. Once they
are safely outside this building, I will see Asmodeus.”

The demon gave me a look that said it was
humoring me, but put two fingers in its mouth and blew a sharp
whistle. A small demon in running shorts and a dirty T-shirt
appeared before it. “Wassup?”

“
These
people…er…revenents, Dark One, and spirit need escorting outside.
See to it.”

The little demon looked curiously at me, its
eyes opening wide when it noticed my double souls. Its lips pursed
together, but before my friends could protest again, it ripped open
the fabric of being, shoving them through it with one last look at
me.

“
How do I know they’re
safe?” I asked, immediately seeing the flaw in my hastily
thought-up plan.

Simon rolled its eyes, and gently shoved me
toward the path. “Asmodeus has no interest in them. Mind the
lava.”

“
Lava. Such a quaint
touch,” I murmured as I stepped carefully over a thin trickle of
molten rock, careful to stay as far away from the raging pits of
fire as was possible. I am not ashamed to admit that there were two
times on the journey across the cavern floor where I came close to
turning tail and bolting, but each time Simon seemed to sense my
rising panic, and stopped long enough for me to regain
composure.

“
Here we are, then, all
safe and sound. Well…for the moment.” Simon’s smile as we crested
the plateau was feeble even by demonic standards, and did nothing
to promote a feeling of security. “My most gracious lord,
the
tattu
is
here.”

For the most part, my life has been
sheltered. I’ve seen monarchs and politicians rise to power and
fall away into obscurity. Radicals, geniuses, madmen…they’ve all
crossed my path at some time or other. But with very few exceptions
(Sally being one of them), they have all been mortal. The Society
has been a recent phenomenon, forming a shy fifty years ago, and
although my work there has afforded me a chance to mingle with
other immortal beings, I seldom do. Asmodeus was the first demon
lord I’d ever seen, and I had to admit that I was somewhat
disappointed by the mundane appearance of the man who rose from
behind a desk to greet me. He could be any fifty-something
businessman crowded into the London tube, clutching a briefcase and
a copy of a morning paper.