Caym took his eyes off me long enough to bend his long, skinny body and kiss Elizabeth’s hands, then he did the same for Vera.
“It’s so kind of you to grace us with your presence, your Honor,” Elizabeth said. She sounded like she meant it, breathless and pleased.
“It’s always a pleasure to visit your splendid residence, Countess,” he said, which was the first time I’d heard any of the guests give Elizabeth that title, and it reminded me of Caz, my own Countess, captive somewhere in this mad city. “And Lady Zinc, what a sublime thrill it is to see you again as well.”
Vera colored quite charmingly. She seemed more impressed by the president even than Elizabeth had been. “I’m flattered you remember me, my lord.”
“Caym, please. These are my leisure hours.” And then he straightened and turned to me, his wet, bright eyes flicking up and down as if I were a tasty bit of roadkill he was examining from a convenient height. “And you must be Vera’s guest. Snakestaff, is it not? When last we met she could speak of nothing else.”
“Oh! You have such a good memory, Grand President!” She turned to me. “It was the night we found you in the road.”
“Knocked him down is what you told me.” The grand president made a merry, flirtatious face, particularly horrible on his bony, exaggerated features, like some kind of exotic tribal mask. “And please, Lady Zinc, I do not wish to keep correcting you, but you must call me Caym.”
As Vera made fluttering little sounds of agreement, the president turned back to me. I was just beginning to relax. Apparently he had been looking at me only because Vera had mentioned me.
“But now that I see you up close, sir,” he said, “I find that there is something familiar about you.” He might as well have reached into my chest and squeezed my heart. “Is it possible we have met before?”
“Ah! Ah, I mean, no, no—I don’t think so.” I felt as if everyone within twenty yards was staring at me. “I come to the Red City so seldom. The most of my business is . . . is in Perdition Valley, several levels down.”
“A lovely little province,” said Caym in a pleasant tone that suggested he’d never heard of the place. “Well, there are several of your guests that I would like to greet, Countess, including your husband who I see over there plotting some mischief with that old villain Pope Sergius, so I hope you will forgive me if I drag myself away from your far more charming company. This may be my evening for recreation, but I still cannot ignore my duties.” As Elizabeth and Vera gushed, the crowlike figure turned away, then stopped and turned back. “You know, Countess, I am sponsoring an evening at the Dionysus two nights from now, that grand bit of Monteverdi we all love. It should be quite an event—Himself is going to take the leading role in the opera, of course.” You could practically hear the capital “H.”
Himself? For a moment I had an absurd vision of Satan all decked out in a Valkyrie outfit, singing an aria. That seemed unlikely, but both Elizabeth and Vera gave out muffled shrieks of glee, as though Caym had said something deliciously naughty. “Is he really?” Vera asked. “What fun!”
“Yes, and I would be honored if you ladies would be my guests. And bring your gentlemen, of course.” He sketched a little bow toward me. “I humbly suspect the evening’s entertainment will be the talk of the Red City.”
On the way home Vera was as happy as a teenager who’d just found out she was going to be on some MTV reality show, bubbling about what an honor it was that Caym should remember her, and how astonishing it was that the grand president had asked us to be his theater guests.
“What did he mean, ‘Himself’? Who’s going to be playing the lead?”
“Never mind.” She was being coquettish. “You’ll see. It will be delicious. But let’s talk about you, you lovely, darling man. You impressed the president so! He’s not like us, of course. Most of the old ones don’t have our . . . urges. But he clearly thought a great deal of you. Wondering if you’d met! But you haven’t ever met him before, have you, darling? You’d tell me if you truly knew him, wouldn’t you? A president!”
By the way, there’s not just one president at a time in Hell like in the U.S. It’s merely a title, but it’s a pretty oomphy one. I’ve only heard of about three or four other demons, all original Fallen, who have that in their resume, so in a way it’s actually a lot more exclusive than being the guy in the White House.
Anyway, Vera was in a very cheerful mood. Once I’d gotten undressed for bed and had donned that Dickensian nightdress, she came into my room, still dressed in her party finery, and insisted on going over all the exciting events of the night, the people she’d seen and the astonishing things she’d heard. Of course, Caym’s invitation was the crown jewel and thus required lots of consideration. She sat on the bed beside me, her on top of the covers, me under them. The servant Belle was in the room too, waiting to help her mistress get ready for bed. As Vera talked and gently stroked my hair I felt a strong fondness for her, the last thing I had expected to feel for anyone or anything here. It was sexy, too, in a weird way, the old-fashioned clothes and the old-fashioned manners. Vera was pretty as a porcelain doll, girlish in her enthusiasms, and like Caz, could have passed for human (and a very attractive human at that) anywhere on Earth. She seemed to like me very much, and I couldn’t ignore that either. Just the feeling of her fingers trailing through my hair made me sleepy and content, comfortable in a way I rarely felt on Earth or even in Heaven. But there was nothing more in it for me than that, I swear. I admired her, I was grateful to her, and I couldn’t help but acknowledge that she was very, very attractive, but I already had one demon-girlfriend, and look where that had gotten me. More than that, Caz had grown so big inside of me since our first night together that there truly wasn’t much room for anyone else.
But Vera had been good to me. I reached up to squeeze her hand. For a moment I thought I felt something strange when I touched her, something hard and sharp, and we both jumped a little, but by the time we had recovered, laughing, I realized that it must have been the tips of her fingernails, which she kept long and perfectly trimmed and polished.
“Oh, but here I have gone on and on!” she said. “You must be exhausted, my dear. Belle, come and help me out of these clothes. I shall not bathe tonight; I am too tired and too excited. I think I shall just crawl into bed naked.”
She and the tall servant went out, leaving me alone to think about that interesting image, but I was suddenly so exhausted that I fell asleep within moments after the door closed behind them.
The strange days of my official citizenship in the Red City slipped by. Snakestaff might be an unimportant minor demon of the Liars Sect, a sort of small town lawyer compared to the sharpies I had faced as Doloriel, Heavenly Advocate, but now, Snakestaff and I had been whirled into the heart of society, or at least the damned version of the idle rich.
It wasn’t easy to make sense of the way Hell worked, because everything here seemed as bizarre and chaotic as Heaven was ordered and seemingly unchanging. It was clear to me at least that Vera was not exactly at the heart of things. Her friends Elizabeth and Francis were much bigger players than she was, but she was an enthusiastic participant, an infernal social butterfly with a love for the trappings and protocols of her lost earthly life. She took me to various gatherings, and although I met some truly hideous people (and I’m using the term “people” very loosely here) I met others who, except for their appearance, wouldn’t have been out of place at any smart gathering. Many of the damned and demonic were funny, colorful, even charming (in a don’t-turn-your-back-on-them sort of way).