“If by fight you mean get cut to pieces, burned, and sunk, then yes, we’ll put up a fine fight. Ah, well. I always suspected I’d wind up at the bottom of the Styx someday.”
As if to underscore this cheery thought, the wind changed direction and our sails sagged. As I stared out across the dark expanse of river I could hear the hungry rumble of the Headless Widow’s engines.
thirty-seven:
walking on water
HERE’S A little rule about warfare at sea: Avoid it.
Here’s a corollary pertaining to warfare against a ship full of angry demons, on a mythical river inhabited by monsters, and with no better hope, even if you win, than fighting your way across the rest of Hell afterward on the off chance that you might find your way out again, at which point your angry angelic bosses or any number of other interested parties will get on with the job of ripping your soul out of your body and sending it right back to Hell again: Avoid that even more strenuously.
But there I was, standing at the Bitch’s rail, watching just such a demonic ship bearing down on us, as it had been doing for hours.
In ordinary circumstances we’d have been all right, because we had the current with us and our ship was small and fast. Slavers had to be, not because slavery was illegal in Hell (not bloody likely) but because slaves were valuable cargo that other ships were only too happy to steal. But according to Riprash, Niloch’s ship was powered by four huge steam engines, so even if we could get through Styx Lock ahead of them, they would gain on us even faster when we reached the thicker, more resistant waters of the Phlegethon.
If we ran all night, Riprash said, risking going onto a rock and only-the-Highest-knew what else, and we managed to stay ahead of Niloch, we’d probably reach the lock in the earliest hours of the morning. But after that, it would be only a matter of time before he overtook us. Riprash and his crew were busy keeping us alive until then, coaxing every bit of speed out of the old slaver’s tub, but I had nothing to do but walk back and forth on the deck nursing a growing sense of disaster.
In less fucked-up circumstances it would have been interesting to watch the crew working together to keep the Bitch running ahead of our enemies. Many of them had the apelike look of Gob, which stood them in good stead as they swung through the shrouds even more nimbly than the most experienced human sailors. Others less suited for climbing looked as though they’d be most useful when it came time to fight, especially a pair of brothers named Retch and Rawny, who had razor-sharp talons on hands and feet and were covered all over with spiny plates. Still, if the enemy caught us, even those two were going to find it hard to do much more than outlive us by a few moments. The Headless Widow was closer now, and even in the dim red light reflected from Hell’s awesome ceiling, the only glow on this stretch of the oily river, it was plain that their ship was far larger than ours and their crew far more numerous.
It was my fault that Niloch was bearing down on the Bitch, my fault that when he caught up, he’d sink Riprash’s ship and take the survivors into slavery. It was up to me to help save them, or all this hopefulness about redemption was just noise.
Then, as I paced, I suddenly remembered what Riprash had said about throwing the owner of the pistols I was wearing overboard, and that gave me an idea—a crazy, hopeless one, but I wasn’t in a position to be picky—so I went to ask Walter about supplies we might have on board. I found my former co-worker standing at the starboard rail watching the Widow’s lights slowly grow closer.
“Riprash says Niloch’s the worst kind of demon,” said Walter quietly.
“There’s a kind that’s worse than the others?”
“He said Niloch’s the sort who wants to make a name for himself, but he’s basically mediocre. Mediocre—that’s my word, not Riprash’s. He said, ‘useless.’ He says it’s the ambitious, stupid ones who make the most trouble.”
“Not just here, either,” I said, thinking of Kephas. “Still can’t remember anything about what happened?”
Walker shrugged. He didn’t meet my eye. “Sorry. I do know you, though, Bobby. It took me awhile, but I remember you now. I think you treated me square.”
“We were friends,” I told him. “That’s how I always saw it. Do you remember anything else? The Compasses?”
He rubbed his wrinkled little face. “Not really. I mean, I know it was a place and that I used to go there. I sort of remember it was a place where people laughed and . . . sang?”
“Not so much singing as putting money in the jukebox and shouting along,” I said. “But, yeah. More or less.”
“I think . . . I think I remember Heaven, too.” He spoke slowly, as if wanting to be certain of what he said. “At least, that’s what it seems like. Beautiful, bright light. Someone talking to me. A sweet, sweet voice.”
“Yeah, that sounds like Heaven. But you can’t remember anything else?”
“No.” He was frustrated, almost tearful. “No, but it’s important. I know it’s important.”
I felt like his pain was my fault, too, but it had to be better for him to know he didn’t belong in Hell, didn’t it? It wouldn’t have been kind to leave him in ignorance. That’s what I tell myself, anyway. “Well, if you think of anything, let me know. Because something is definitely weird. You were attacked by the guy they sent after me, then . . . you just never came back. I expected they’d put you in a new body . . .” I broke off, having noticed something happening on the horizon, where The Headless Widow had grown taller as it approached, so that it now looked almost like Gravejaw House itself had taken to the river. “Is Niloch’s ship . . . on fire?” I stared, positive that I was seeing things. Certainly it was too convenient otherwise, for our enemy simply to catch fire. “Riprash!” I shouted. “Come here!”
When the ogre arrived, the cloud of smoke and fire around the Widow had spread out a good way on either side, and I truly began to believe that fate might have saved me from an extremely unpleasant end to my infernal vacation. “It’s fire, right? It’s burning?”
Riprash didn’t look like someone ready to celebrate. “It’s fire, right enough. But it’s not their boat burning. Fact, whatever it is, it’s coming toward us.”
“What? Is it a gun? Did they fire something at us?”
I never got an answer, at least not from Riprash, because the dark cloud full of fire was growing so fast that I couldn’t see Niloch’s ship any more. A moment later something shot over our heads, flaming like a tracer bullet. It hit the deck, bounced once in a shower of sparks, then smacked into the far gunwale. A nearby sailor threw a bucket of black Styx water on it.
“What is it?” asked Walter, but a moment later a dozen more whipped past us and we could see that they were birds, gray and plump and fast, and every single one of them on fire.
A couple struck the mizzen sail and started the fabric smoldering. A pair of simian deckhands scrambled up the lines to put it out, but even as they climbed several more birds struck the mizzen and the topsail. Another winged blaze came hurtling over the water toward us, bobbing crazily, and smacked right into Gob, catching in his hair and setting it alight. Riprash roared and grabbed the boy, then leaned out over the rail, stretching his huge arm to dunk the boy in the river and extinguish the flames.
“Niloch’s doing! He’s the Commissar of Wings and Claws,” Riprash shouted as he dropped soaking Gob to the deck. More birds flew past as if shot out of a gun, trailing flames, trying to fly even as their wings burned away. “Man the buckets, every helljack of you!” he bellowed. “They’re trying to set the sails alight, and if the sails burn, they’ll catch us before the next glass. Pass those buckets! Keep the water coming!”