“Stop it! You’re like a teenage boy.” She made a little moaning noise of indecision, then finally shoved me away me more firmly. When she could manage it, she stood and shook down her skirt. “Tonight, at last lantern. Dis Pater Square, in front of the old temple. I’ll send someone for you.”
“Temple?”
“Just look. You’ll know when you see it.” She let me kiss her, sinking right into me for a moment, so that I almost thought she’d fainted. I think it was the first time I’d felt her without any of her armor, although it didn’t last long. I could sense her toughening up again in my arms. “I have to go,” she said, pulling away.
“You love me, don’t you?”
“I . . . care about you. I don’t love anything.” She shook her head. “That’s not my word.”
“It’s mine. It’s the same thing.”
“It’s an entirely different universe, Bobby,” she said. “Lock the door when you go.” Then she hurried out.
It took everything I had not to follow. Instead, I waited a decent length of time, tidied things up a little, then made my way out of Chateau Machecoul to the crowded streets. They looked different now, but it was hard to put my finger on why. More familiar, perhaps. The Halloween parade of hideous shapes and faces was never quite as bad in the expensive parts of the Red City, anyway, but it was still horrifying. If you dropped an ordinary human being into the midst of what I was seeing, they would have made a pants-wetting conversion on the spot to the most puritanical religious sect they could find. But to me, still floating on the high of having been with Caz, it looked endurable. It looked . . . ordinary. I really was beginning to get used to the place.
It was worse than when I quit smoking. Just knowing I was going to see Caz again in a short time made waiting for that time to pass the most painful, frustrating thing imaginable. It wasn’t just that I was going to see her and be with her, it also meant I could finally take her away. But it had to happen soon. After all, I had other problems besides Caz. I didn’t have any idea how long I had been in Hell by Earth reckoning, and there hadn’t been much I could do about it anyway, but if I was away too long I was going to have serious trouble with my job. But I was almost done. Now that I’d found her, all I had to do was steal her from one of the biggest, meanest bastards in the universe and then sneak her out of Hell. It was impossible, I knew, but just being near her again had reminded me that I really had no choice.
According to Lameh’s implanted memories, to escape I would have to get us both back to the place I’d come in—the Neronian Bridge, many levels below Pandaemonium, on the outskirts of one of the deep Abaddon layers. But whether it was entirely rational or not, I no longer wanted to go anywhere near the lifters. It wasn’t just that my experiences had been so horrible, although that was very much in the picture, but because they were so easy to police, with only one outlet at each level. I was pretty sure it was no accident that Hell had been set up like some kind of ideal fascist state.
But if I didn’t use the lifters, I needed to make some other arrangements, and that’s why I headed to the shipyards down by the Stygian docks.
Some of the biggest ships had smokestacks, and some of the most modern looking, most expensive vessels looked like they might have even more sophisticated forms of locomotion hidden beneath their dark-gleaming decks. But even here in the great harbor of the Red City, most ships had masts, and it looked like an endless thicket of black trees, the swells swaying the trunks of these tree-ships like a strong breeze.
The noise of the place grew louder as I made my way to the docks, until I could scarcely hear myself think above the pounding of mallets and the groaning of saws, not to mention the usual whip cracks and screams. Demons and damned in harness swarmed the hulls of the sailing ships or scuttled like crabs over the rough metal of the armored steamers, scraping away the worst of Hell’s noxious marine life from the previous voyage, blood-red barnacles as big as traffic cones and disk-shaped creatures that humped away from the sailors who were trying to catch them like manta rays skimming the bottom of a muddy river.
As I stood wondering how to find a ship that could carry me to the lower levels, I realized someone was watching me. I didn’t even see who it was at first—it was just a troubling sensation that made my neck tingle. But then I turned and saw a weird little fellow staring right at me from a dozen yards away, across the busy wharf. A somehow familiar little fellow like a pudgy, upright cat, with buggy eyes and a too-human face.
I thought he might run when I took a step toward him, but instead he only stood, goggling at me like someone who didn’t even realize he was staring. By the time I’d reached him, I’d remembered.
“I kn-kn-know you,” the little creature said.
“The slave market. You work with Riprash.”
“Y-Yes,” he piped, “I d-do. But there’s something . . .” He scowled, his little face wrinkling like a dried apple doll. “I know y-y-you . . .”
“Shut up. Is Riprash here? In Pandaemonium?”
“Of c-course.” Krazy Kat was still staring. It was beginning to bug me. “K-Kraken Dock.”
I was stunned. Good luck, for once? “Can you lead me to him?”
He shook his head, the faraway look replaced by a sudden fear. “Can’t. Already late. He wants his supper fetched.” He backed away from me, then turned and tottered off at speed, like a raccoon forced to run on its hind legs. “Kraken Dock!” he called back over his shoulder.
Kraken Dock was one of the farthest down the main pier. I hurried past all manner of disturbing cargoes being unloaded from an equally strange assortment of ships, from great, flat-drafted swamp wanderers to deep-hulled slavers. I saw more than a few slender trading sloops from the distant lower levels, too, but most of the craft had the look of Chinese junks, built more for reliability than for speed. When I remembered some of the hideous things I had seen coiling in the depths of Cocytus during my journey with Riprash, I completely sympathized.
The Nagging Bitch lay at anchor, her hull shiny with black pitch, her sails furled but ready. Grim as she was, I was so thrilled to see her again that I almost ran up the gangplank, but I had been in Hell long enough to know better. I couldn’t even guess what eyes might be on me in Hell’s greatest harbor, so I took my time, mounting to the deck with the weary slouch of someone with nothing to look forward to but more slavery. I was challenged by some of the sailors hauling supplies on board, but before I had any serious problems with them Riprash appeared at the top of the aft stairs, the huge wound in his skull glinting in the lantern light.
“Snakestaff!” he rumbled.
I held my finger to my lips. “Pseudolus.”
For a moment he just stared, but then he nodded. “Soo-doh-luss.” I suppose you don’t survive on the rivers of Hell for as many centuries as Riprash without being fairly swift on the uptake. He beckoned me toward his cabin. It still smelled like a giant sweat sock, but felt pleasant and familiar compared to most of the places I’d been.
Gob was crouching on the floor. He looked up when I came in with the same expression you see on dogs who get kicked more often than not. If I’d expected him to run and hug me, or even just to grunt, I would have been disappointed, though I could tell he recognized me. Folks just don’t hug in Hell, unless they’re rich and pretending they’re actually people. Still, I was definitely glad to see him. He looked a little fatter and healthier, I thought.
“I owe you something,” I said to the boy and crouched beside him. I took his hand and put two iron spits into his palm. “That’s what I owe you.” Then I shook out another handful and a half’s worth of iron. “And that’s because you spent so much time helping me.”
Gob looked at the money, his apelike little face deadly serious.
Riprash laughed. “He’s trying to think where he’ll hide it from me.”