by Marie Browne
Keril and I took a step back, shocked by the change. Graham had obviously gone and we were now facing the Lord of Hell.
Parity began weeping and Graham shuddered. His eyes changed again to light blue and he looked fraught. I noticed that his hair had developed another white stripe.
What had just happened? I was almost positive I’d been talking to Lucifer. I stared at Graham as he wrung his hands, almost hopping from foot to foot in his desire to comfort Parity.
Keril who had been standing quietly next to me all this time nudged me and frowned a question. I shrugged – I had no answers. There seemed to be no reason why Lucifer popped up occasionally then disappeared again just as quickly. As Graham seemed to be in charge of the walking and the talking at the moment, I turned my attention to the river.
No more than 50 feet away, a long black boat was slowly approaching, with a lantern illuminating the way. It was a hideous, damaged vessel, patched with hundreds of haphazardly cut plates of what appeared to be rusted steel – none of them the same size or shape. The original boat was long gone and it was now a thing of rags, patches and more than a little hope; a tatterdemalion of a craft. The metal at the waterline hissed and bubbled as it emerged on the crest of each thick grey wave.
‘What’s with the water?’ I asked Keril. ‘It looks like milkshake.’
‘Acid,’ he said. ‘You can only get the ferry across. No bridge will stand, the supports get eaten through, and so does anyone that falls into it; they just disintegrate within seconds. That’s why it’s called the River of Pain and Tears.’
‘Do you think Parity will be OK?’ I changed the subject.
Keril shrugged. ‘She’s an odd one,’ he said. ‘It’s like she’s not really here, sometimes she just stops.’ He shrugged. ‘Her brother’s odd as well. He’s so tired all the time but I’ve never seen him do anything that looks particularly stressful. I just don’t know what to make of them.’
‘How do you think Alice and Arden are doing?’ I broached the subject carefully; this was the first time I’d talked about them since offering them to Michael at the cathedral.
Keril gazed at his toes. ‘She’s not much of a fighter, but she’s a mother through and through. I think she’ll be fine as long as she stays with the engineers. Arden will have a great time – he’ll be spoilt rotten. We don’t have many young any more. Alice will just make sure he eats, stays warm and things don’t get too crazy.’ He smiled. ‘Well, I say she’s not much of a fighter: she can crack a punch occasionally and she’s very lithe on her feet.’ He looked at me and grinned. ‘But I’ll tell you this for nothing: she is never, ever going to forgive you for throwing that dog shit in her mouth!’
I laughed, finally feeling happier. ‘I couldn’t find a club and that interesting handful was just luck. If she’d been trying, she’d have ripped me open before I even had chance to get at her.’ I looked at him. ‘I’m really sorry.’
Keril reached over and, grabbing two large handfuls of jacket, picked me up off the floor with no physical effort at all. ‘It’s done. You’re sorry, I know – I forgive you. Now please shut up about it! I don’t like talking to you because I know you’re just going to apologise again and again … and again … and again.’ He shook me with each repetition.
‘Bleaurgh!’ I gripped his forearms until he put me down. ‘OK, I get it, I’m sorr …’ I stopped and grinned at him as he shook his head and placed me gently back onto the dried mud of the riverbank. We stood in silence for a moment, both conscious of the rest of the group staring at us. ‘Soooo …’ I stared out over the sluggish white water. ‘Do you think that boat looks safe?’
‘Safe?’ Keril laughed. ‘You do realise this is Hell, don’t you?’ He rubbed his long chin fleetingly, picking at a loose scale. ‘Maybe you were hoping for a trip boat – you could wear sandals and a knotted hanky.’ He stared out over the water. ‘Hey, I know, maybe we could hire some pedalos and pedal our way across Hell’s great river.’
I snorted. ‘So, there was this demon, a half-angel and a goat in a pedalo …’ I began.
Keril and I looked at each other then he sniggered. By the time Carly wandered over with a look of worry, we were leaning on each other and howling with laughter. ‘What’s so funny?’ she asked.
Keril looked at her through tearing eyes. ‘Pedalo … Goat …’ he gasped. We both started howling again. Carly, with a look of disgust, threw her hands up in the air and stalked off to talk to more serious people.
Eventually, probably due to a lack of oxygen, we couldn’t laugh any more and Keril dragged himself upright just as the ferry ground itself against the dead whitish dirt of the bank. The hooded figure, leaning on a long steel pole at the end of the craft, said nothing but stood motionless, his face hidden behind a long waxed canvas cape that reached down to about an inch from the bottom of the boat. With a start, I noticed he had no feet – he just hovered. Now that was just freaky.
Belial stepped aboard and handed the ferryman a small bag which clinked and rattled. ‘Passage for all,’ he intoned.
The hood dipped once and, as the ferryman moved, I noticed that he was actually standing on a raised box. I mentally kicked myself – of course he was, if he stood in the acid in the bottom of the boat all day soon he wouldn’t have any feet left. I smiled and shook my head at my idiocy before stepping aboard.
As I took my seat, carefully making sure no part of me was in danger of getting splashed, I listened to the commotion on the bank.
‘No, no, no – no!’ Parity twisted and struggled, kicking out at Melusine and Farr who each had hold of one arm. Graham trotted behind them with the backpacks.
‘Parry!’ Farr grunted as her boot caught him just below the knee. ‘You have to get on the boat. I promise it will be OK.’
‘That’s what you said last time.’ Parity, her normally placid expression replaced by one of utter fury, spat the words into her brother’s face. ‘Last time they put me in a boat, last time they threw me in a river and just kept me under until I couldn’t hold my breath any more.’ She clawed at Melusine’s face and screamed in frustration as the dour dragon merely moved her head out of the way.
‘I held my breath for as long as I could.’ She twisted and tried to sit down, obviously hoping that going limp would stop the inevitable. ‘I could see you through the water. You just kept talking to the inquisitor and he laughed at you.’
Parity finally stopped struggling and began to cry. ‘You brought me back and now I’m dead.’
Graham looked up at this, his face pale.
‘But you’re not God. You can’t really bring me back so I’m just a doll, not real. I’m a toy and you’re my battery. If my battery gives up I’ll just go away again.’ Her voice became quiet now; she was utterly traumatised and past making any sense at all.
‘We’re all dead, Parity.’ Farr grunted, bright red in the face, as he attempted to pour her limp form over the side of the ferry. ‘Some of us just haven’t started decomposing yet.’ Belial caught the sobbing seer as she finally fell into the boat and sat her down next to Carly who wrapped a shawl around her shoulders.
‘I’m not a witch.’ Parity spoke quietly and her words had no emotion. ‘They say I am but I’m not – I just see things. If I’d been a witch I’d have turned them all into toads.’ She giggled and stared up at the sky. Even in her panic-stricken state there was no way she was going to look at the water. ‘Put me in the water and see if I die. If I die I’m innocent.’ She whipped around and glared at Belial. ‘That really doesn’t make sense, does it?’
Graham stepped over the bench seats and sat down next to Parity. Blushing furiously he gently picked up her hand and gave it a cautious pat.
Parity focused on him and smiled, then began to cry. He put a gentle arm around her and smiled. As she turned her face into his shoulder and huddled there, Graham sighed and looked entirely like a cat that had been locked in a chicken coop. Farr looked furious.
The Acheron is wide – v
ery wide – and after about an hour we were still in midstream. Carly, cold and shivering in the icy wind, had tucked herself under my arm and was sharing my leather jacket.
‘So, what’s the story with the brother and sister duo over there?’ I nodded toward Farr who was still throwing irritated glances at Graham. ‘I mean, I get that she was drowned as a witch.’ I paused. ‘What was all that stuff about dolls and emptiness?’
Carly frowned, scratching the back of her neck as she pondered her answer. ‘Well, she’s right really,’ she said. ‘I don’t entirely understand it myself. After her trial – I think it was in 1465 – Farr took charge of her body and reanimated it, but it was too dead.’ She paused and looked confused. ‘Can you actually be too dead?’
I shrugged again. ‘Nothing really surprises me any more, Carly.’
She laughed, genuinely amused at my cynicism. ‘Oh, you poor confused thing.’ She giggled. ‘Anyway, Farr brought her back, but it takes constant effort on his part to keep her alive. His main skill is to talk to the dead, or he can place a spirit into a clay body – he can make golems. He can call up the dead like he did in the tunnel, but keeping Parity alive takes an awful lot of power. It goes against every rule there is and if he were ever to go away, she’d just come to a halt – her body wouldn’t be able to contain her spirit.’ Carly stared out over the pale swells of the Acheron. ‘She’d just become empty, I suppose.’
‘Have I mentioned that you lot are all a little odd?’ I looked over the ferryman’s shoulder, but the far bank didn’t really appear to be getting any closer.
Carly laughed. ‘Well, Graham seems to be happier,’ she said.
‘Yeah.’ I studied him for a moment. ‘But sometimes he seems to be Lucifer and I just can’t work out what triggers the change.’ I smiled as Graham whispered into Parity’s ear.
Parity, eyes wide, listened to what Graham was telling her with a big smile that slowly faded to be replaced with a look of horror. She stood up in the boat and stared down at him. ‘That’s not true!’ she screamed.
Farr stood up and, placing one hand on Graham’s chest, gave him a hard push. ‘What did you say to her?’ He recoiled as Graham smiled at him; it wasn’t a nice smile.
The long, thin ferry rocked alarmingly as Parity struggled to get away. Holding one hand out to ward him off, she staggered back tripping over seats and feet.
Graham stood up and stepped casually toward her. Then, as she tripped, he caught her with a smile. The smile broadened into a laugh as he, quite casually, pushed her over the side and into the oily waters. Even before she hit the water he had both hands in his hair and was screaming. ‘No! Parity!’ Graham leant over and thrust his hand into the water, whipping it back out again with a scream. The skin dripped and ran as though made of hot wax.
Farr, pushing the ferryman aside, had taken his pole and was moving it through the water in an attempt to give his sinking sister something to hold on to. Parity spluttered to the surface only the once. Her face was a fright; blinded and boiling, her skin bubbled and collapsed. Through the smoking tendrils of her once luxurious candyfloss hair, glimpses of bone could be seen.
Graham just screamed and screamed.
Melusine stood up, then holding Belial’s hand for a brief moment, began to change. Her hair disappeared and her face flattened out, an expressionless disc with two slits for nostrils. A set of long gashes appeared below her ear, which fluttered in the open air. Her body elongated, becoming scaled and sinuous, her fingers lengthened, growing a tissue-like web of skin between each digit. As she dived, she shimmered green and purple where her legs had fused into a long, silver-tipped tail.
Within seconds she was back on the boat, holding a jumble of bones and flesh. Dumping her cargo into the bottom of the vessel where it continued to deteriorate, Melusine changed rapidly back to human, breathing heavily as she tried to keep the scales on her body for as long as possible.
Carly rushed over with a water bag and poured the whole thing over the parts of the grimacing fairy which were melting and fusing. Farr, oblivious to all else, knelt in the bilges chanting and pulling his sister together with what seemed to be a web of pale blue light.
‘I can’t control it,’ Melusine said as she rubbed furiously at her arms and stomach. ‘It’s still going inward. I haven’t got long and I don’t want him to do that to me.’ She pointed at Farr then turned to Belial. ‘I’m sorry, I have to go.’ She whimpered and gasped as Carly tried to wring the last of the clean water from the bag. ‘I’ll come back if I can but I need to get this stuff off.’
Belial reached for her hand. ‘Where will you go?’ His face twisted. ‘Don’t leave.’ He took a deep breath and pulled himself together. ‘Where will you go?’ he asked again.
‘Home.’ Melusine panted as the acid ate deeper causing the damaged scales to lift and dull. ‘I have to go, Belial – now! I’ll heal but I don’t know how long it will take.’ Stepping away from his outstretched hand, she partially changed; the dragon wings erupted from her shoulders and allowed her to leap high above the boat; 20 feet above us she became fully dragon and fled back the way we’d come.
We all watched in silence. It didn’t take long for her to become a dot in the distance then disappear entirely. Belial studied the empty sky for a long time before whispering, ‘Be safe.’ He sat down again, his face expressionless.
Parity, restored once again to her normal form, sat up and looked over at Graham. ‘Why?’ she asked.
That was a question to which we all wanted an answer. The silence continued as we waited for him to speak.
‘I don’t know.’ Graham slumped beside Belial. ‘I can see what I’m doing, hear what I’m saying, but I can’t stop it. It’s like being in a big, warm black box.’ He shivered and wiped his face. ‘But then things change and I can push myself back out of the dark.’
‘What sort of things change?’ Carly said.
Graham stared at Parity, his hand clenching as though desperate to reach out to her.
Catching the movement from the corner of her eye Parity recoiled with a look of horror and revulsion.
Desolate, Graham shrugged. ‘I really don’t know,’ he said. ‘It only happens if I feel something very strongly.’
Carly bit her lip – a tell-tale sign that showed she was thinking hard.
The boat rocked and Parity screamed. But it was only gently running aground on the far bank. As we climbed out, the hooded captain of this despicable vessel held out a hand and gripped Belial’s shoulder then, without a word, pushed the pole deep into the white mud, propelling the ferry back out onto the water.
In silence we watched him disappear. Only after he had merged with the river fog did we finally take a look around. Standing on a dead finger of land that ran beside the torpid river we were the only living things in every direction. Nothing grew here. The earth was cracked, broken and as grey as the river. With every movement the dust fluffed up around our feet before settling in every crevice and crack causing a burning, itching sensation. We walked for about 20 minutes, each of us coughing and struggling to breathe. Eventually Belial pointed downward. ‘Welcome to Hell,’ he said.
The ground vanished. It would have been nice to describe it as a cliff or a hill but it was neither of those things – the land just stopped. Edging closer to the lip of the sheer precipice I peered over and swallowed hard as my stomach performed little flips. A long, long way below us was a mass of black rock. ‘Where are we?’ I tried to see details but from this far it was impossible.
‘Over there is the city of Dis.’ Belial pointed to a grey smudge in the distance. ‘Somewhere in amongst all that rock are the ones that got left behind.’
‘Will they still be people?’ I racked my brains thinking of all the people in history that I could end up meeting.
Belial gave me a strange look ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘In some ways, they weren’t really “people” to begin with. Remember we let all the decent ones out – all that was left here we
re the dregs of society. Of course, just to make them extra special they were dregs with one or more magical powers, but even that wasn’t their real problem – they were just bad through and through. People that beat their kids, husbands that hit their wives, then tell them, “Look what you made me do.” Those that laugh at others’ misfortune and never raise a hand to help; those that quietly kill dreams and stamp on ambitions then offer condolences when that person comes to them for help.’ He focused on the horizon. ‘Murderers, torturers and those that have no bloody morals whatsoever. It’s their descendants – that’s what we’re going to find down there – and I can’t really imagine they’ll have got any better.’
I nodded. This was probably the longest speech I’d ever heard Belial make.
‘The worst thing any person can do is lie to themselves – those that look in the mirror and don’t see what stares back at them.’ He laughed. ‘Most of them probably think they’re in Heaven.’ He shook his head. ‘They like it here, this deplorable city with its depraved and power-hungry inhabitants: it suits them well.’
Graham was standing beside me. ‘Of course, there’s those who should be here and aren’t.’ The paper-dry voice echoed back at me as though pushed back by a wind that wanted nothing to do with it at all.
We all took a step away from the edge and left Lucifer, his black and white striped hair blowing in the breeze as he gazed out over the void. He turned and laughed. ‘You should be down there, Joe – it would be home for you.’ He turned his black eyes away and smiled. ‘Home is where the heart is and yours should be here.’ He paused. ‘Preferably on the end of a spike.’
I seemed to have upset the Morning Star quite badly. I shrugged. Well, “People Mad at Me” wasn’t a very exclusive club – I’d upset a lot of people. I should have been terrified but I found that all I could do was laugh. Lucifer himself wanted me dead. Michael, in comparison, faded somewhat into insignificance.