thirty-five:
hounds
WHEN THE gray finally dissolved, I found myself back in the conference room. There weren’t any donuts this time, just the moldy ruin of the box in the middle of the table where it might have sat for years. The coffeepot lay on its side, shrouded in cobwebs and covered with a thick film of dust. The table and carpet were filthy with dust, too. It was a bluff, I felt sure. Well, fairly sure.
Eligor had changed his outfit. Instead of his Count Richelieu drag, he’d opted for something a bit more like a male Victoria’s Secret model, if you can imagine such a thing: blue jeans, bare chest and bare feet, and beautiful, spreading white wings.
“I was an angel once, remember,” he said when he saw my expression. He was still wearing the Vald face. “And a bit higher up the ladder than you are.”
“Yeah, but I heard you got downsized.”
For a moment I saw a little of the white-hot anger beneath his achingly handsome, golden-haired disguise; a ripple through his entire being as though a stone had dropped into a pond. “I fell.”
He’s not hurting you at the moment, Bobby, I reminded myself. So why don’t you shut the fuck up and stop making him angry?
I stayed silent while he stared at me. He stared for a long time, as though I’d grown several new and interesting features since our last meeting. At last he extended his hand and an instant later Doctor Teddy was standing beside him, no taller than Eligor’s waist and cute as a wind-up abortion doll.
“I have a proposition for you, Doloriel,” said the grand duke.
“I’m listening.”
Eligor sat down in midair. “Here’s the problem, troublesome angel. You make me uneasy. Not because you’re as smart as you think you are, but rather the reverse. You’re so stupid that I don’t trust you at all.” He frowned as he considered. A lot of Renaissance painters, and not just the gay ones, would have burst into tears at the sight of such beauty. “You might think you’ve successfully hidden the feather from me and everyone else, but I can’t trust your idea of successful. Knowing that you’re all that stands between me and an infernalis curia makes me . . . well, if I was a delicate little thing like you, I’d say ‘nervous.’”
He wasn’t hurting me, but he wore a very strange expression, so I swallowed my natural tendency to crack wise at the dumbest possible time. “So?”
“So I’m going to offer you a bargain. I’m going to let you go back to Earth and get the feather. If you turn it over to me, you stay free. I have no reason to go after you once I’ve got it back, anyway.”
I couldn’t believe it. Could this really be happening, or was it just a trick? Eligor was actually bargaining?
I did my best to stay calm. “No. I take the Countess with me. If we both get back safe, I’ll give you the feather.”
He laughed. It was nearly a pleasant sound, which just goes to show you how powerful he really was. “You’re joking, of course. I could just erase you both right here and right now, then take a chance that wherever you’ve hidden the feather, it’ll stay there.”
“Then why don’t you?”
Again the long, considering look. It was only when he was doing such small, human things that I could really see how inhuman he was, because there wasn’t the faintest glimmer of emotion on that perfect face. It was like trying to stare down a marble Michelangelo. “All right, angel. My last offer. I will let you go. You will return to Earth and retrieve the feather. Then you will trade it to me for the Countess, if that is really what you want most from me.” A sly smile. “I would have chosen a better harvest of the riches of Hell if I were you, but we won’t belabor it. In return for the feather, I will give you the whore and promise you both immunity.”
“Don’t call her that.”
The smile widened. “Believe me, compared to what I could accurately call her, that is a compliment that would make a maiden blush with pleasure. But never mind. That is my offer, my only offer. Give me your answer now.”
I was desperately trying to see the trick. I knew there had to be one. “How do I know you’ll keep your promise?”
“Little angel, the entirety of what you call reality only exists because of the promises of things like me. I cannot break my word any more than you could dismantle the sun or turn time backward. Also, you have no choice.”
“And if I get the feather and give it to you, you’ll let the Countess of Cold Hands go free? Casimira? You’ll release her and bring her to me and we’ll swap? Right? Then you’ll leave us alone? No revenge?”
“Exactly.”
“Say it. I want to hear you say it.”
He shook his golden head. “My, you are demanding for someone in your situation. Very well. I, Eligor the Horseman, master of Flesh Horse and Grand Duke of Hell, promise that if you return the angelic feather you’ve hidden to me, I will exchange this she-devil you call Casimira, Countess of Cold Hands for it.” He gestured lazily and suddenly Caz stood beside him, bound in chains and still gagged. Her eyes widened when she saw me, and she shook her head violently. I knew she was trying to tell me Eligor couldn’t be trusted.
Like I didn’t know that. But no matter how cool I was playing it, I also knew I had no other choice. “All right. I’ll make your deal. And then you’ll leave us both alone? Wherever we are? Forever?”
Eligor nodded. “Once I have the feather, I will leave you two alone forever, wherever you are, as long as you keep silent about what you know. But if you try to sell me out later in any way, our bargain ends, and I’ll do things to you that will make your time in the conference room seem like the games at a children’s party. Agreed?”
I took a breath, looked at Caz, who was still struggling. What choice did I have? “Okay. I agree. Now, take those chains off her, will you? If you hurt her, you’ll never get what you want from me. Never. I’ll just call Heaven and hand it over.”
A moment later Caz was gone. “She is free, but of course she is still in my . . . care. She’ll stay that way until I hear that you have the feather, and you’re ready to give it to me.”
I felt like Sky Masterson, putting my entire bankroll and my immortal soul on a single roll of the dice, but like I said, what other choice did I have? “Am I free to go, then?” I asked.
Eligor nodded slowly. “Almost. But if I were you, I wouldn’t hurry off until you’ve heard what else I have to say. You see, somehow my old friend Prince Sitri discovered that you were my guest. You remember Sitri, of course.”
I remembered the monstrous creature very well. “Oh, yeah. He’s a charmer.”
“He’s a jealous, interfering fat turd,” said Eligor with just a trace of rancor. “He’s informed the Senate that the prisoner I borrowed from Murderers Sect’s custody is, in fact, an angel—a heavenly spy.”
“What?”
“Because of that, a bit of . . . controversy has erupted. And because I have supposedly corrupted the guards of the Murderers Sect, Sitri and the others have sent the Mastema’s Purified to my house. They answer only to the Adversary, so bribery is not going to work this time.”
“Sent? You mean they’re on their way?”
The grand duke looked bored. “I would guess they’re probably already outside, being stalled by my household staff. But that won’t work for long.”
“So you had no choice. No wonder you made a deal with me! If you didn’t, they were going to take me anyway!”
Eligor shook his head. “No. I would never turn you over to the Senate alive. But if I give them your remains, there’s still the chance that someone will find that feather. I don’t want it . . . hanging over my head, if you see what I mean.” He fluttered his pure white wings. “Thus, our little bargain.”
“But how am I supposed to get out of Hell?”
“Not my concern. You found your way in, you can find your way back out, little angel.”
“But you said that if they catch me, they’ll make me tell them where the feather is, tell them what you did, everything . . . !”
“Ah.” He nodded. “Yes, there is one more arrangement to be made.” He pointed and the teddy bear monster was suddenly dressed in hospital scrubs. “Did you bring along our little friend, Doctor Teddy?”