Hell on High

by Holly Lisle

  He offered his hand, and Rhea took it. "And you won't regret it," she said positively.

  Roberts looked thoughtful. "No," he said, "I don't believe I will."

  Rhea escorted Roberts out to the parking lot. The building was empty. Even Jack had gone home, and the first stars were starting to appear in the evening sky.

  "There's Orion," Roberts said, pointing up, "and Venus over near the horizon. I used to think that if I could name them all, somehow that would, I don't know, bind them to me, and I would get to go." He started to walk towards his car, then turned and looked back at Rhea. "And maybe I was right," he added. "Your prototype ship," he said, "what's it called?"

  "She's named Morningstar Rising," Rhea said.

  "Not bad." He smiled. "Not bad at all. I think it will take someone with a bit of poetry in her soul to give us back space."

  Rhea watched as he got in his late-model Mercedes and shut the door. It closed with the solid thunk that came from two hundred years of Germans being very good at whatever they decided to do. Sometimes too good, she reflected—she'd known a lot of Germans. The engine caught at the first touch of the starter, and Roberts left the lot without looking back.

  Rhea waited until he made the turn onto Cornwallis Road. Then she kicked off her shoes and threw them back through the open front doors. She padded across the parking lot and stood in the grass overlooking the small pond. The creek chuckled and somewhere an owl let fly a tentative hoot. Rhea waggled her toes and finally took the time to look around. She smiled to herself and stared up at the rising moon. It had been a long day. But not a bad one.

  Chapter 14

  Jack woke up Monday morning before his alarm rang. That had never happened to him on any of his old jobs—he loved his sleep, but since coming to Celestial he beat the alarm three times out of five. There was just so much to do, and most of it fun. He brushed his teeth quickly, and jumped in and out of the shower. Dressing never took long; it was just jeans, a clean shirt and loafers. He was out the door within fifteen minutes of his head leaving the pillow.

  Gotta clean this place up someday, he thought as he stepped over a stack of printouts spread out down the hallway. Could be a fire hazard. He picked out the deadbolt key and opened the front door. His newspaper was on the stoop. He kicked it back through the doorway, where it sat expectantly beside ten other similar rubber-band-secured bundles. Jack only read the comics, and there hadn't even been time for that lately.

  He closed the door, gave it a sharp jab with his knee to seat the striker and reached to set the deadbolt. The key went in slowly and painfully, almost as if the lock were regaining its virginity, and he decided that this evening, for sure, he would remember to give it a squirt of oil. "Sure, I still respect you," he told it as he struggled to get the key back, "I'll call. Trust me."

  The key came free and he pocketed it triumphantly.

  Suddenly, there was a sound from above. Jack would have been hard pressed to describe it. It was something like an elephant's trumpeting, but more liquid. At any rate, he didn't have long to think about it, for an instant after the sound, a warm, runny mass of the foulest substance he had ever come in contact with enveloped him. "Son of a bitch!" He swore and wiped frantically. His eyes were covered and burning, and he could barely breathe—and what little air he was getting had a stench that seemed to leach all the oxygen out of it. He panicked, groping blindly for his keys, and dropped them on the front concrete. No time! He jumped the low porch railing, feeling his way along the outside wall until he came to the spigot. He turned the handle frantically to no result, finally remembering to push down to seat the loose screw. He was starting to feel faint. Another second and he would have to breathe through his mouth... and taste it.

  The hose stiffened and he traced it down to the nozzle at the end. With the last of his strength, he turned the spray full on himself.

  The torrent struck him like an electric shock, but he'd had enough of those over the years, and he kept it up, gasping at the water up his nose until the smell receded and his vision started to clear. The first thing he noticed when he could see again was a pair of joggers standing at the end of his driveway and looking at him curiously. He turned off the nozzle and gave them his best Well, what are you looking at? stare, and they moved on reluctantly. The second thing he saw was the gargoyle sitting on the eaves of his house, just above the front door. It was hard to tell with a face like that, but Jack thought it had the satisfied expression of a senior citizen whose bran muffins had just kicked in exceptionally well.

  Jack got up and gave himself a once-over. His clothes were shot, and would probably have to be burned. He might—just—avoid shaving his head if he got into the shower right now. He saw his keys at the edge of the stoop, and darted in, grabbing them quickly. "Hey, you!" he called. "Shoo! Get out of here!"

  "Not gonna." The gargoyle's voice was curiously high pitched. Oddly feminine.

  Jack swore under his breath. First the imps, now this. Fifty thousand Hellborn in North Carolina and he got them twice running. He was going to have to figure out some better way to get rid of the things. No time now though. He went around to the back door and let himself in, leaving his clothes in a pile on the carport. He ran naked down the hall, grabbed a new bottle of shampoo from the shelf and turned the shower full on.

  After twenty minutes, all of his hot water, and half of the shampoo, Jack thought he might be fit for human company again. He toweled off a view port on his mirror and inspected his hair carefully. It looked like he had gotten it before it set. He dried off carefully and smelled the towel. Not too bad; his clothes had taken the brunt. He dressed again and gingerly retrieved his wallet and checkbook from the pockets of the pile of toxic waste that had been his favorite jeans. He got a yardstick and used it to push his old clothes into a plastic garbage bag. What he really needed was a ten-foot pole, but he got the job done somehow, and the bag into the garbage hamper.

  It was nine forty-five by the time he poked his head out tentatively from under the carport. The gargoyle was still over the front door but Jack decided not to push the issue. Gargoyles weren't the brightest of the Hellborn, and likely something else would attract her attention before he got home again. He was probably going to have to sandblast that porch though. He got into his car, which started perfectly, and headed off for Research Triangle Park and the office. The gargoyle's head swiveled to follow him, "You come back?" she called plaintively.

  Jack rolled down the window. "No," he shouted, "I'm moving! You might as well shove off." His retired next-door neighbor was out watering the lawn, very carefully not noticing anything. Jack waved, but the man suddenly found a very interesting piece of pinestraw which needed his full attention.

  The mold for Jack's day had been pretty well set, and nothing he did seemed to break it. He had replaced the blown resistor, and got the drive prototype back to the humming stage (A-flat, he'd finally identified it) only to have the modulator blow again—this time it was a Zerner diode that went. He'd traced all the circuits once more, comparing each of them against his printed schematic, and all of them were perfect. What's more, though he didn't fully understand the design, all the rules of electronics said that there was no way those circuits could generate overloads. It was against the laws of physics. Of course, the whole thing was supposed to violate the laws of physics, but he was looking to commit a felony, and he was getting collared for jaywalking.

  He was at his desk whistling tunelessly when Jan came in. "Not going so hot, huh?" she asked.

  Jack started and looked up from his schematic. "Oh, hi, Jan. No, not especially. How'd you know?"

  Jan came over and scooped an armful of old printouts and trade magazines off his visitor's chair, looking around briefly for a clear space before dropping them on the floor. "You never sit at your desk when things are going good," she told him.

  Jack considered. "Yeah, I guess that's true," he said. "I'm having a bad hair day."

  "Well, cheer up," Jan said, "
I found Rhea's shoes at the front door this morning, and she's been smiling all day, so I think we might be out of our hole. She's even got the rent-a-suit coming in this afternoon and you know how much she loves lawyers."

  "Maybe," Jack said glumly, "but if we get the funding, we'll actually have to deliver a product."

  Jan smiled and poked him. "Ah," she said, "but that's not my problem."

  Jack grinned in spite of himself. "Thanks, Jan. You're just a little ray of sunshine."

  "I try not to let it go to my head." She got up to leave. "Oh, here's some faxes that came in for you." She handed him the slick sheets. "Hope that helps."

  He rifled through them. They were the manufacturer's component spec sheets he'd asked for. Hmm, maybe it would help. When he looked up again ten minutes later, Jan was gone.

  The hours passed slowly after that. Jack read through the details of every component on the modulator board and, except for a brief bit of excitement over what turned out to be a typo, it didn't help. It was starting to get to him a little—he was irritated and edgy and he kept seeing things moving out of the corners of his eyes. He hadn't whistled anything more lively than "Taps" in hours. He was starting to suspect that he should have waited for the alarm that morning, and then pulled the covers up over his head, he would have accomplished just as much—probably more. Monday is not part of the productive work week, the quote came to him from somewhere. But he was not going to let a relatively simple circuit get the better of him. He picked up his schematic and started working through it again.

  Chapter 15

  Glibspet loved Mondays. In the old days, he could get more souls on a Monday than the rest of the week combined. That wasn't his main job anymore, but just being out among the crowds of traumatized, post-weekend humans never failed to put a spring in his step and a gleam in his eye. And the Monday traffic jams! They were the closest thing to being back home he'd ever found. That was one reason he usually drove to work rather than porting in; he wanted to savor the whole experience. He'd done a study once, actually checked the records, and found that he could win more souls for Hell with a few illegal lane changes and some really bad exhaust fumes than with a whole week of enticements to adultery. Not that that wasn't fun too.

  All good things have to end sometime though, and his exit was coming up. Glibspet sighed, and doffed the old fedora he'd been wearing. He sat up to his normal height and gunned the Lincoln Town Car up from thirty-five to eighty, leaving the far left lane and cutting across four lanes of hostile traffic towards the Roxboro Road exit. He took the barrage of horns and squealing brakes in stride as an accolade for a job well done. As he left the interstate, he thought he heard the sweet sound of metal on metal.

  He turned right onto Holloway, drove past the gas company and pulled the Lincoln into the lot by his office. Before locking up, he grabbed the rubber doughnut hemorrhoid cushion off the driver's seat and squeezed it experimentally; it was a little flat. No wonder he was sore. He'd worked all weekend on getting rid of his tail again. He'd gotten it back down to a three-inch stub, but that was almost worse than having the whole thing.

  His outer office door was nondescript, just a stenciled g.i. below a mesh glass window. There was no external keyhole—all the locks were on the other side. He'd have to get a locksmith in to fix that first thing. Otherwise he was going to blow the cover he needed for the next phase of his work. Glibspet reached through and turned the bolt, cursing as the hemorrhoid doughnut rode up his arm until it looked like a water wing.

  He pushed it down and stepped inside. The office didn't look too bad; he had a janitorial service in on Wednesdays. It wasn't spotless, but it wouldn't scare anyone away, and he expected a lot of visitors today. He'd placed an ad in the Durham Morning News on Friday for a research assistant and gopher—the payoff on this Averial case was just going to be too sweet for him to plod along on it. He threw the cushion back into his office and walked into the bathroom.

  Glibspet studied his face in the mirror. He liked it—it had lots of character. His grin bared lovely strong canines and the fine, almost invisible red scales gave him a dignified, glossy look. Unfortunately, it wasn't a face that could pass for human, and it was a lot easier to hire people if they thought you were human. Customers, now, that was different. Being a demon was a draw for customers, and his Yellow Pages ad made no bones about it, but for this case he already had his customers. And if he were going to get an assistant, he was going to have to pass for human for quite a while.

  He stepped out of his clothes and joined his hands over his head. He concentrated hard on his fingertips, and gradually they began to glow. It wasn't the steady radiance one of the Fallen could have managed—it was more like the fitful guttering of a fire banked down to embers than the glorious blaze created by the higher-ups—and it was painful for Glibspet to evoke this new manifestation, but his little powers did what he needed them to do. He drew his hands apart, and a fat red spark arced between them like a crimson Jacob's ladder. Very slowly, he traced a Glibspet-sized ellipse in the air before him, drawing the spark out thinner and thinner until it seemed that it must break up. When it was no more than a red filament, his hands met and touched on the floor. Blue fire traced back around the completed ellipse, and the faint smell of brimstone filled the room. Within the boundary he had drawn, the air shimmered and gradually took on the shape of a naked human male. When he was satisfied the image was complete, Glibspet stepped through the oval, and the image clung to him like a soap film drawn across a hoop. It bulged as he walked forward and it tightened, trying to push him back. He kept going, and suddenly it snapped free of the frame and wrapped around him like a bubble, then collapsed in on him. The ellipse flared white hot and vanished; the glow left Glibspet's fingers.

  Glibspet swore and turned on the faucet, thrusting his hands underneath the water. There was a puff of steam, then cool relief. He'd learned that one the hard way—after one of his initial disguise attempts, the first thing he'd tried to do was use the bathroom. The experience had been... educational.

  When the steam stopped, he turned back to the mirror again. Not bad. The idealized figure had stretched to fit over him. It wasn't handsome by a long shot, but the face that stared back at him from the silvered glass was unquestionably human—except for the eyes, of course—and he felt confident he could hold the seeming as long as he needed to.

  The seeming couldn't do anything about the three-inch stub of tail behind him. That he'd have to hide with baggy pants and jackets until he could finish demanifesting it. He'd decided not to do anything about the ten inches in front of him—there were some sacrifices he wasn't willing to make. The eyes weren't as much of a problem as they sometimes seemed—shades and cosmetic contact lenses effectively disguised the square pupils.

  Glibspet picked some appropriate clothes from his wardrobe and dressed quickly. He went through several boxes of business cards, finally settling on Dominic Glib. That one had a nice ring to it, and he hadn't used it for a while. He grabbed a couple dozen cards and stuffed them in his pocket.

  It was still early; he had specified nine thirty in his ad, so he had a little time yet. Glibspet retired to his office to consider his strategy. He put the doughnut on his chair and started to think. Since Averial was trying to stay hidden (and he dearly wanted to know how she'd managed that), she would be drawing as few Hellawatts as possible. Hell could trace Hellawatt usage. Probably she had taken on a human manifestation pretty close to her natural shape so that she wouldn't have to do much in the way of maintenance. A picture of her as Averial, humanized (a more Hellish version of Ted Turner's colorization) should give him photos that would make useful identification tools.

  As for how she'd hidden herself... well, without the use of Hellish power, she was going to have to rely on human methods of dropping out of sight. He'd gotten good at working his way around those.

  The easiest way to hide was to take someone else's identity. It was a lot simpler to amend an existing set of pape
rs than create them all from scratch. Unfortunately, taking the identity of someone who was still alive tended to get both parties in trouble, and except in Chicago during November, it was hard to get much use out of identities whose owner had been pronounced dead. There was, however, a gray area. People living in North Carolina for less than nine months weren't citizens, so if they died, the responsibility for canceling all their records went to their home states, which left all their North Carolina records without an official status and easy to appropriate. If Averial was in North Carolina, she had probably started as a dead out-of-stater.

  He was going to have to pull lots of obituaries—or rather his gopher was.

  The buzzer sounded as his outer door opened. Glibspet looked at the clock: nine twenty-five—right on time. He stepped into the reception room and looked at his first prospect. She was probably about seventy, well dressed, and a little plump with silver hair. She looked a lot like Barbara Bush—a perfect grandmother type. Glibspet hated grandmother types. They tended to be bad influences on people—keeping them out of Hell. And their bodies! Glibspet was convinced that after about the age of forty, gravity gained complete mastery over human women. He had absolutely no desire to see naked a woman whose navel was granted honorary nipple status because of the company it kept.

  "May I help you?" Glibspet said pleasantly as he walked over to the woman. She had a black patent leather purse under one arm, and a copy of the Durham paper under the other.

  "Yes, thank you," she said. "My name is Helen Norton, and when I saw your ad for a research assistant, I knew I was just the person you were looking for. I recently retired as a research associate at the Library of Congress, and before that I worked in the State Bureau of Records and in the investigation department library at State Farm. I've been kind of at loose ends since I retired. All my friends want me to come down to Florida and play shuffleboard, but I'm still raring to go do something useful."