Happy Hour In Hell: Volume Two of Bobby Dollar (29 page)

His chuckle was pitched so low it made my teeth hurt. “Pay me when we get to Cocytus Landing. You never know what might happen before then, and I like to earn what I make.” He looked a little surprised when I stood up. “Where are you going?”

“Believe it or not, I have a date.”

Gob barely seemed to notice that I was leaving. He was still looking suspiciously from the iron segments in his hand to Riprash, then back to the money.

Somehow, when getting dressed to go out means hiding your knife and various other small weapons, not to mention covering important bits of you with strategically thicker clothing, it undercuts the romance a bit. I hasten to say that even though Caz had a bad habit of belting me across the face from time to time, she wasn’t the reason I was dressed-to-protect. Any errand in Hell, including a walk down to the corner grocery, was likely to turn into a major bloodstorm. Wander out of the house without any means of defense and you might as well stuff your pockets with money and consumer goods and go out fishing with Somali pirates. In fact, I’d have liked to wear armor, but I didn’t know what the rules were for my sect, and the last thing I wanted was to be picked up for some bullshit dress code violation.

I made my way back across the center of the city to Dis Pater Square, where I was supposed to find what Caz had called “the temple.” I wasn’t sure what that was, and it didn’t seem like it would be easy to find: Beeger Square back home was a pretty big place, but you could have dropped about ten of them into Dis Pater and still had lots of ugly space left over. Also, Dis Pater wasn’t kept anywhere near as tidy as Beeger Square. Hell has no building codes and pretty dubious physics, so if there was such a thing as an old temple, it might easily be obscured underneath squatter camps and impromptu markets. Dis Pater was the center of Pandaemonium. Like big cities back on Earth, it drew refugees from all over, but didn’t have enough places to put them all.

I walked past some of the most bizarre gypsy-type camps you can imagine, including tents aerated by eye, nose, and mouth-holes still visible in the stretched skin. Others had been cobbled together from the shells of giant infernal bugs. On one side of the square a massive flock of winged demons perched like the pigeons of Venice on the facade of an abandoned palace, fanning themselves with their wings. Dozens of other creatures squatted in the shadows beneath them, perhaps enjoying the breeze from the winged ones’ flapping squabbles, but more likely feeding off the garbage or even the guano they dropped.

I found Caz’s temple at last, a structure that would have been small and unprepossessing if not for its aura of immense age. The blocks were so crude that only time had brought any smoothness to them, but you could still see where they seemed to have been torn loose from the mother stone. I climbed the steps to the open doorway, which gaped like an idiot mouth, and peered inside. Nothing seemed to prevent me from walking into the shadowed interior, but it would have taken a lot more than the threat of mere physical pain to get me to do so. The ancient temple was dark, hot, and airless, of course, and quiet but for the buzzing of an unusual amount of flies. It seemed deserted, but something about the place was so creepy that I still think about it today, even after all the other things that have happened to me.

When I turned away from the door, I saw a robed, hooded woman standing at the foot of the temple stairs. For a brief, happy moment I thought it was Caz, but as I started down she beckoned for me to follow her, and one glimpse of her bloodless, water-swollen hand told me who it was. Marmora, the drowned girl, led me out of the square and down a series of narrowing back streets. We walked blocks and blocks, but she never stopped dripping and left wet footsteps everywhere.

We went on for what felt like the good part of an hour, the last half of it uphill through a series of increasingly overgrown, silent streets. It was still evening in the Red City, but this neighborhood was in an angle of the Lamian Hills where the beacons didn’t reach, so shadowed that it might have been full night. It was a lonely, silent place that kept me on my guard. I didn’t see the little cable car station until we were right on top of it.

I say cable car, but I think back on Earth they’re called “aerial tramways”—at least the ones in America. We have them in the wine country north of San Judas, and there used to be a cool one on Mount Tamalpais near San Francisco that went down in the ’98 quake. If you still don’t know what I mean, it’s the kind of cable car that hangs way up in the air. I’ve never loved the things, but compared to what I was looking at now, the earthly ones were safe as a kid’s tricycle. These cables led up at a truly impossible angle, and the machinery, unmanned, looked incredibly old and unsafe. Nevertheless, there it was with its huge gears and huge cable, and there was the car, a rusted box with the rotted remains of what had perhaps once been some nice fittings.

When Marmora reached the steps she lowered her hood, showing me her lank hair and poached-egg eyes. “The Countess is at the top,” she said in her quiet, slightly soggy voice. I couldn’t guess what she was thinking. “She’s expecting you, Lord Pseudolus.” She turned and walked away down the winding path.

I stared at the clanking, groaning machine, which reminded me far more than I liked of the lifter. At least this time I wasn’t bleeding to death.

I stepped up into the small tram and found what looked like the brake. I disengaged it and, after a moment of rattling indecision, the car began to lurch upward along the swaying cable.

Just get through this bit
, I told myself,
and Caz is waiting. Then it’s all good.

I was extremely wrong, of course. As usual.

snips and snails

I
WAS ABOUT
halfway up the slope, the black and tangled vegetation of the valley falling away beneath me, when I saw Eligor’s car parked in a cleared space below me. It looked like a cross between a steam-powered Duesenberg and a Humvee, except it was covered with ornate lanterns and the bumpers were studded with long spikes. It was also heavily armored and probably full of weapons. Leaning against the car were two big demon dudes, their bald, gray heads perched on grotesquely muscled bodies—Candy and Cinnamon, the Countess’s former bodyguards, keeping an eye on their boss’s property.

So, the sugar and spice boys were here. The good thing, though, was that I saw no sign of Caz herself in the crude clearing that served as a parking lot, and no obvious way to get the grand duke ‘s car farther up the mountainside, so it suggested they were going to wait there for her. I ducked back into the rusty gondola in case one of them decided to look up.

The sudden thought of having Caz alone was enough to make me almost breathless, but the cable car still crept slowly as a caterpillar, leaving me with nothing to do but look at the scenery, which by Hell’s standards was pretty interesting. I could see now that Pandaemonium was actually built on a series of hills, with the great black city walls around the outside. I was traveling up the tallest hill, Mount Diabolus, which showed bones of black obsidian and a variety of plants and trees growing on it, mostly in shades of red, black, and gray. (One thing I had begun to understand is that absence of color itself could be a punishment, and I was certainly getting tired of those colors. No wonder the infernal gentry liked to dress up.)

But it was only as the tram car shuddered its way into the uppermost reaches of the peak that I saw the true glory of the place, such as it was. Nestled between the peak I was ascending and the dark jut of the nearest of its neighbors was a saddle in the hills, and in it, surrounded by wiry trees and black grasses, was a lake, flat and shiny as an irregular mirror.

The tram ground to a halt in the rotting remains of the hilltop station. I got out.

“I almost didn’t believe yesterday had really happened,” she said.

Caz stood at the edge of a path between the dark trees. I hurried toward her, but although she let me take her in my arms and kiss her, after a moment she wriggled free and not too gently.

“What’s wrong?”

“Walk with me,” she said in a flat voice. I took her chilly hand as we stepped under the trees, which looked like the scorched remains of a pine forest. It was clear, however, that underneath the black char, beneath the gray soil, the trees were still quite alive.

We walked down the slope, the lake always before us, gleaming in these last hours of the second beacon like a red gem. I wondered how dark it got up here when only the afterlights burned. Caz broke our silence to point out a winged, long-beaked creature sitting on one of the black branches. “They call it a shrike here,” she said, “but it’s not really a bird. Not the kind with feathers. If you look close, you can see that it’s more like an insect.” She shook her head. “They call it ‘shrike’ because it impales its kills on tree branches, just like the bird. The difference is, the birds do that to eat, but these creatures do it to lure a mate.”

“Are you telling me that I should be building a wall of corpses if I really want to impress you?”

“Not funny, Bobby. I’m trying to make a point. Evolution works differently here.” I raised an eyebrow. She scowled. “What? Are you surprised that I know about evolution? I might have grown up in the Middle Ages, but I’ve seen a lot since then, and read a lot too. I actually met Darwin once, you know.” She let go of my hand and waved her fingers in dismissal. “No, forget it. Another time. I’m trying to make a point.”

“And what point is that?”

“We’ll never work, Bobby. We’re too different. I’m like one of those shrike-insect-things. I was only alive for a few years on Earth.
This
place made me what I am, Bobby. No matter what I feel about you, and no matter what you . . .” She shook her head, unable for a moment to speak, but she kept walking. “No matter what else is between us, we just don’t have a future.”

I considered this for a second or two before sharing my thoughts. “Bullshit.”

“It’s not. You can’t just make it all go away by disagreeing—”

“I didn’t say everything you said was bullshit, Caz, just your conclusion. How do you know? Look, you pointed out that this place
evolves
. But here’s the interesting bit—Heaven doesn’t, at least as far as I’ve been able to tell. Nothing ever changes there, and that’s the way they seem to like it. But here? Everything’s changing all the time. It’s like . . . some kind of crazy experiment or something.”

“And do you know why?” she demanded. We were nearing the edge of the trees now, the lake stretched just beyond like a mirror set down by a titan hand. Caz grabbed both my arms. I’d almost forgotten how strong she was. “Because it’s
worse
that way! That’s how everything works here. It’s about punishment. It’s about suffering.”

“So? I already figured that out. What does that have to do with us? It’s not like I fell for you because I thought you’d be a load of laughs.”

At another point in our relationship she might have at least looked amused, but now she was too tired, too sad. “Don’t, Bobby. Don’t make fun. What this is all about is goodbye.”

It was the one thing I hadn’t expected to hear, at least not quite so baldly, and it took me off-guard. I walked a few yards ahead, stepping out of the trees to stand on the lakeshore. Parts of the black surface steamed, while other parts were lively with the movement of slippery shapes just below the surface, rolling up into the air only long enough to make the waters splash and ripple. I had no idea what they were; something that could have happily eaten a plesiosaur, judging by what I could see, slippery bodies big around as redwood trees. I stayed several yards from the water’s edge.

“Goodbye?” I said at last. “Look, it took me a long time to get here. Do you really think I’m just going to turn around after all this and go back without you?”

“Yes.” She had stopped a little behind me. The dusty gray soil had already made a mess of her white stockings where they showed beneath the hem of her old-fashioned dress. Dinosaurs and pinafores. Hell was the craziest place. “Yes, Bobby, that’s what I think. That’s why we’re here. Love me one more time—leave me one more memory—then go away. I’ll never be happy in your world. Not in either of them.”

“Are you trying to tell me you’re happy
here
?”

“Of course not. I’m trying to save your soul, you fool, something you never seem to think about. So just go.”

Now I was really angry. Now I was the one grabbing her, clumsy because of my still-regenerating hand. I wasn’t planning to let go. “No, Caz! And it’s not just because I went through all this bullshit to find you. I’m not that shallow. No, we belong together, and just because you’re . . . too frightened to believe it doesn’t mean I’m going to let you talk me into giving up.”

She was crying a little, the tears becoming spots of frost almost as quickly as they leaked from her eyes. “Stop it, Bobby! Stop it! It’s . . . cruel.” She slumped so suddenly, so bonelessly, that for a moment I thought something bad had happened, but she was just overcome with exhaustion and emotion. “Don’t you understand? Don’t you know what you and your so-called love are doing to me?”

“What I’m doing to you? I’m not holding you prisoner—that’s your arch-shitheel of an ex, sweetie.”

“Do you think I care about Eligor? Do you think I even care about what he does to me? I just told you how Hell works. Why don’t you get it? I finally learned to live with the pain, or at least how to exist with it, but ever since I heard your voice at the Circus . . .” She choked a little as she fought for composure. “Since that moment, I have
truly
been in Hell. Because you brought it all back. Not just yourself but
everything
. What we had, what we pretended we had, even what we could have had if the entire universe had been different. Yes, I thought about it too. For a couple of seconds I almost let myself feel it. But it was always a lie, Bobby.”

“I’m not just Bobby,” I said quietly. “I’m an angel, Caz. I’m Doloriel, too.”

“Yes. And you always think the glass is half full. But even if that were true, the glass is half full of
poison
.” She extended her other pale hand toward me. It trembled. “Just love me, Bobby. One more time. Then go back to your angel games and your pretend-people friends. Let me grow some scar tissue, because that’s all I’m going to have.”

“No.” I had been waiting ever since we’d parted in the dress shop to make love with her again, but I was too angry, too hurt. “No, I’m not doing it. I’m not saying goodbye and neither are you, and I’m not having one last isn’t-this-sad pity fuck, either. I’m coming back for you tomorrow, Caz, and I’m taking you away. If you can get out on your own you can meet me in front of that old temple in Dis Pater Square where I met your soggy friend today. If not, I’m coming right into Eligor’s place to get you, and I don’t care how many of his guards I have to cut into little pieces to do it. Got it? Tomorrow, just after the last beacon goes out.” Then I turned and walked away along the edge of the lake.

“Bobby, no! That’s just crazy!”

I heard her but I kept going.

“Bobby! You can’t go down that way! Take the tram!”

But I was too angry. If I didn’t burn off some of the rage coursing like napalm through my veins, I was going to strangle something. Not that random strangling was such a no-no in Hell, but it might attract more attention than I wanted. Still ignoring Caz’s calls, I reached the nearest end of the lake and headed off the path, down the slope through the black trees. My brain felt like a wasp’s nest that someone had kicked.

I had made it perhaps a mile downhill, dusty gray dirt filling my lungs with grit, thorny branches scratching my exposed skin, when the worst of my anger began to wear off. In fact, I was just beginning to wonder if I had been a little hasty (or, God forbid, overly dramatic) when I stumbled out into a clearing and realized I was face-to-face with Caz’s two bodyguards, still waiting by the parked Hell limo. They stared at me for a second, not so much recognizing me as recognizing that I probably didn’t belong there. I had just realized the same thing when one of the two ugly bastards shouted, “Oy! You!” I turned and ran back into the trees, cursing myself for the self-absorbed idiot that everyone always says I am. Everyone is right, of course, but shut up.

Now it was a race. They weren’t coming after me as hard as they would have if they had recognized me, but names aside, Candy and Cinnamon were strictly the snips and snails and severed puppy-dog tails sort of guys—military-grade weapons in hypermuscled, vaguely human forms. They didn’t have to go around trees the way I did, just through them. The sound of shattering trunks and exploding branches followed me down the hillside like artillery fire.

Judging by the noises, I seemed to have pulled ahead of at least one of them, but his ugly brother was right behind me. I followed the tramway cables as best I could, half the time sliding down the slope on my ass because the loose black soil was treacherous under my feet. The much heavier Sweetness Twins didn’t seem to have the same problem: When I looked back, the nearest of the two was only about ten yards behind me. He was holding something in his hand that looked like a short whip made of loops of glowing barbed wire, and I decided that I really,
really
didn’t want to find out what that would feel like. Sadly, it didn’t look like I was going to have much choice. A couple of dozen yards in front of me the slope fell away sharply, the tram cables swaying in midair above a drop of at least a few hundred feet. I had to slow to a stop.

I was pretty sure the one thundering down behind me was Cinnamon, although there wasn’t a huge amount of difference between the kinds of ugly the two of them wore, but even in demonic form Caz’s driver retained a sort of mustached look, a greater thickness to his leathery upper lip. I was tempted to remind him of my many humorous comments about his porn career in the hopes of making him angry and reckless, but I figured since we were both wearing different bodies and he hadn’t recognized my new one, that would definitely count as asking for trouble. Instead I took a few steps back up the slope toward him and lowered myself into a kind of wrestler’s crouch, my arms spread wide.

“Hold up, you,” he growled at me, slowing down a little as he saw me ready to fight back. He lifted the glowing, rattling wire whip. “Tell me what you were doing . . .”

If I was any normal idiot he would have caught me off-guard, because halfway through that sentence he suddenly swung his flail, with every clear intention of swiping my head right off my neck. Luckily for me, I already knew that neither of us meant the other well. I ducked the weapon and then scooped a handful of black dust from the slope into his eyes.

He screamed in fury, but he wasn’t anywhere near as angry as I wanted him to be, because instead of charging down the slope in an insane rage, he groped toward me with small steps, sweeping with the glowing flail, angling himself so that I would find it hard to get back up the slope past him while he was momentarily blinded. I’ve faced off against more good fighters over the years than I ever wanted to, and Cinnamon was definitely one of them.

However, he
was
a fighter, and I wasn’t, which was my only advantage. I’m just a survivor. I kept throwing things at him, making enough fuss and ruckus to keep him staggering downhill toward me, wiping at his streaming eyes while also trying to keep me in front of him. Another few steps and I stumbled and fell back, ending up in a crouch. I tried to look exhausted, which wasn’t hard since I was. Cinnamon could see just enough of me to know that he had me, so he hurried to reach me before I could get up again. And that was the mistake I’d been hoping for.