The ground shook. For a moment, the grounds in front of me were illuminated by a gust of fiery light as the burning gas forced its way out of the hatch, blowing the metal lid through the air like a communion wafer in a tornado. It almost hit me as it came down, digging deep into the ground, then a roll of thunder shook the ground again, and Gravejaw House vomited fire from half its windows.
Heartspider had been too stunned to speak, but as I crept back toward the hatch she began to beg me not to waste this chance. I’m not even sure she knew that I had caused the explosion. The flames were licking up from the tunnel as though the whole of the catacombs were on fire. The ground boomed and shook beneath me. When I steadied myself again I saw that one of the walls of Gravejaw House was toppling in an avalanche of old stone. I could hear a few screams from the part of the house still standing. Heartspider was right: I really didn’t want to hang out there very long.
I took the bundle of her bones from my shoulder and tossed it into the hatch. Heartspider’s voice shrieked in my ears. “Traitor! Traitor! I put my curse on—” And then she fell silent as the bones ticked down the hatchway tunnel into the inferno below, and she realized what was happening.
“Ah!” she gasped, like a drowning woman who had finally broken the surface. And then, as baking heat scorched her last remains to ash, she was gone.
“Yes, I did it,” I said, although I was talking only to myself now. “After all, a deal is a deal.”
As I made my way across the grounds curious bystanders flocked into the gardens and toward the commissar’s castle, staring in awe at the pillar of fire currently towering above Gravejaw House, demon spectators mostly. Tellingly, not a single one seemed to be there to help, but stood watching as Niloch’s slaves struggled against the hungry blaze. Of the slaves’ owner there was no sign, and I wasn’t going to wait around to see if the commissar had survived. I sort of doubted you could kill one of Hell’s nobles with fire, anyway. The problem was, so many damned and demons were milling around that someone was bound to remember me when Niloch came thundering out after revenge.
One of the spectators, a creature with the discolored head of a pig set on the long body of an NBA shooting guard, followed me as I tried to make my way discreetly through the outskirts of the crowd.
“You there!” he said. “Slave! Stop or I’ll have you skinned.” My dirty, scorched, bloody nakedness was disguise enough, it seemed, at least with this idiot. But seeing him standing there in his long black robe gave me another idea. “How is our beloved commissar?” he demanded. “Is he safe? You must tell him that his loyal tradesman, Trotter, asked after his health.”
I nodded eagerly and beckoned for him to follow me. He fell in behind, perhaps hoping to be led to the commissar himself so he could get in a little timely ass-kissing. When we were out of sight of the rest of the onlookers I hurried through the winding gardens. The skeletonized shrubs were weeping, trying helplessly to shake falling embers off their leaves. When we reached the hatch I did my best to ignore the hot metal against my torn skin as I got close. The flames had retreated, but not far, and the hot air that rushed up from the pipe felt like it blistered my skin.
“See,” I said. “See, Master, see!”
Trotter stepped forward, curiosity fighting caution, and stood a little way back from the pipe, craning his piggy head forward on the end of his long neck in an attempt to see. I leaned out over the hatch as if the agonizing heat wasn’t hurting me, and beckoned again. “Look!”
When he had leaned far enough, I shoved him down with enough force to crush his windpipe against the rim of the pipe. As he fought for breath, I slammed his head over and over against the edge of the hatch until he stopped struggling, then peeled off his robe with bloody, ragged fingers. Trotter’s body was as gray and knobby and unpleasant as I would have expected. I suppose I should have felt sorry for him or bad about myself, since I had just murdered him in cold blood and everything (well, horribly crippled him, since no one died in Hell) but I didn’t. I didn’t have enough me left. All I knew was that I had to get out of Gravejaw and up the great lifter. I no longer had only to reach Pandaemonium and accomplish my business without being caught, although it would be a hundred times harder now that Hell would be looking for an outsider on the loose. No, it was crystal-clear that I had to find Caz and get out of this place of unending horrors before I went truly and finally mad.
nineteen:
going down
THE GOOD thing was that I could see the gigantic lifter shaft from pretty much anywhere in the city of Gravejaw. The bad thing was that even after I had scrambled across the endless scorched wasteland of Niloch’s gardens and climbed the outer wall, I still had to get across the entire wretched slum to reach it. Apparently the Commissar of Wings and Claws had seen the immense structure as an insult to his own awesomeness, so he had set up housekeeping on the highest piece of land, which happened to be a couple of miles away from the lifter.
Now that his house was going up in flames, the reddish light made it seem like Hell’s midday had come early, and I could see a great throng of hellfolk hurrying up the hill toward me from the surrounding city. I was just looking around for something to use as a weapon when the first of them reached me and sprinted past, hurrying toward the disaster. They just kept coming, more and more, shouting, honking, making noises I don’t have words for. Some hopped and some flew (although not well enough to write home about) and others teeter-tottered along on mismatched legs, but none of them gave me much more than a glance. The stolen robe helped, and I guess I wasn’t burned enough to be worth staring at.
I fought my way against the throng like a queer salmon in spawning season, trying as hard as you’d guess to avoid body contact, but still getting speared, smeared, or dusted every few steps. Very few of the creatures pushing past me seemed upset or frightened by what was happening. In fact, to judge by the hundreds of deformed faces I saw, most seemed downright thrilled, and the rest were at least interested. I don’t think the commissar had a lot of fans.
I pushed free of the worst of the mob at last and hurried down to the base of the hill. There were still residents in the narrow streets of Gravejaw, demons and damned who couldn’t just drop their business to go watch something fun. Many were blind, and some had sensory organs so alien they might not even have realized what was going on. Others clearly just couldn’t move fast enough. I passed a thin man hopping slowly along the road waving his right hand as I passed him. Only when I turned to look back did I realize that he only had a right: he had been bisected from head to crotch like a medical cadaver being prepared for one of those see-through views, and was hopping on one foot, trying to balance that thin half body and half head with his single arm. As I looked back, I could see his exposed organs and brain flash wetly as he wobbled.
Creatures like salted slugs, like toads with bone disease, or broken-winged birds, many with heads too big for the bodies or bodies too big for the heads, I hurried past them all, trying not to see too much but still seeing more than I wanted. The lower part of Gravejaw was built on a series of small hills, and following the tiny streets up and down was like being on the world’s only human-powered roller coaster. I ran through half the city, it seemed, out of the center and into outer districts where trading and torture went on side by side, as if it were any other night. Even this far away, the ones with eyes must have been able to see the burning castle on the hilltop but none of them seemed to care very much. The only comment I heard was from a mostly skeletal, three-eyed giant with a hammer who was carefully crushing the shinbones of a chained prisoner in front of what must have been a very strange shop: He looked up to the hilltop as I hurried by and said to his companion, who was digging at the same prisoner’s eye with a spoon, “It’s burning good. Burning real good.”