by Tom Holt
Now of course he and Ab could have any bodies they wanted, ten miles high, twenty-headed, fifty-armed, adamant or gold or burning plasma. But they’d stuck with the ones they’d started out with, even though they were hopelessly old-fashioned and starting to fall to bits. The way Snib saw it, a body is for life, not just for—
He frowned. Rephrase that. A body is for life; you don’t just throw it away and get a new one as soon as the paint gets chipped or the ashtrays get full. You stick with it, patch it up and carry on, because the aches and pains are just as much a part of being corporeal as the strength and the mobility and the cohesion and all the really good stuff. All or nothing at all. Anyhow, that was how he saw it, and Ab always followed his lead, and that was just fine. And, heck, he enjoyed being tired. It let him know he was alive, and when you’re immortal, that’s very important.
Sleepy. It had been a long day. He snuggled back into the chair, relishing its support, and reached out into the friendly darkness, where he wouldn’t have to be himself for twenty minutes or so. No such luck. A familiar voice hauled him back into the light, and he sat up.
“Snib,” the voice repeated. “We got trouble.”
That was Ab for you, always worried about something. Ab had had an anxious frown long before he’d had a face to wear it on. “What?”
“War’s broken out,” Ab said. “There’s fighting in the streets.”
Snib sighed. Ab tended to exaggerate; you needed climbing gear and oxygen to scale his molehills. “You sure about that?”
Ab nodded eagerly. “In a place called London, England. A whole regiment of our best guys wiped out to the last man.”
Snib sighed, pulled his LoganBerry from his inside pocket and thumbed through to the latest sitrep. “That’s not what it says here,” he said. “According to this, some guy just beat up on a dozen yellowcoats.”
“That’s what I just said.”
“Minor cuts and bruises, and all paid for in advance.” His eyebrows rose when he saw the account number the charges had been debited to. “Who sent the yellowcoats?”
“I did. Sorry, I guess I must’ve forgotten to mention it.”
Ab was a pretty hopeless liar. Also, he liked to do stuff on his own initiative once in a while, and the results were generally not helpful. “I guess so,” Snib said. “Out of interest, why did you order them to arrest the son of the previous management? You know the deal. Cut him all possible slack.”
“It wasn’t him; he just happened to be there. It was the other two. They’re dangerous.”
Snib sighed. It was amazing what Ab could feel threatened by when he really set his mind to it. “Two humans.”
“They’re asking questions.”
“They do that. Can’t arrest every human who asks a question, we wouldn’t have anywhere to put them.”
“About—” here Ab lowered his voice, furrowed his brows and pulled a terrible face “—about the reindeer guy.”
On the other hand, just once in a while (twice so far, in fact, since they’d left Mars) Ab got it right, and one of his hunches turned out to save the day and prevent a catastrophic disaster. “What sort of questions, Ab? Like, Can you think of anything I could get my mother-in-law? isn’t a major issue.”
“They want to know where he is.”
Snib pursed his lips. “Just innocent speculation.”
“They want to find him.”
See above, under exaggeration. Also, over the years, the wrong end of the stick had been worn smooth by the touch of Ab’s palms. “You sure about that?”
Ab gave him a pained look, as in Why do you never believe anything I tell you? and played him a clip on his LoganBerry. “Right?”
“OK, brother. This time you may have a point.” Snib frowned. “And Kevin G. picked up the tab for all this?”
“Not Kevin. A couple of his old man’s button men. They’ve been keeping an eye on him.”
Snib could feel a mild headache coming on. “Fine,” he said. “Where is he now?”
Ab shrugged. “Disappeared.”
“He can’t have done, Ab. We got the whole planet on CCTV. What you mean is, some fool on the desk—”
“Vanished. Into thin air.”
The headaches made Snib Venturi feel real. But there was no time for that now. “Impossible.”
A reprise of the pained look, and Ab conjured a fistful of stray photons into a holoscreen and played him the CCTV clip. Sure enough, one moment Kevin was there, in the restaurant kitchen, and the next moment he wasn’t. Magic.
Snib Venturi prided himself on his easy-going nature—any more laid-back and he’d be a spirit level. Some things, though, even he couldn’t tolerate, and being made a monkey of (no offence to the dominant indigenous species) was one of them. Fun is fun, he always said, but the Hell with nonsense. “I want those two clowns arrested, now, and locked up in the Marshalsea. Don’t just stand there, bro, see to it.”
Ab quivered slightly, but he knew his place. “Sure,” he said. “How many troops should I send?”
Snib looked at him as if his brother had just asked the time while standing underneath a clock. “All of them,” he said.
24
To go from Hell to the movies, you take the Infernal Subway to Level 666 and then the escalator to the customs post at the Hub of Acheron (where you can reclaim any hope you may have deposited earlier, provided you’ve remembered to bring your claim check); you then proceed on the fast-track rolling walkway to the hellmouth of your choice. From the Hub, all the exits to the land of the living are equidistant, so your selection is guided simply by where you decide you want to go, the time zone, what’s showing where, whose seat prices are cheapest and who’s doing the best deal on nachos and popcorn.
Like 98 per cent of the human race, Bernie and Jenny had decided they wanted to see the latest Star Wars, because of the special effects and because the good guys always win. Hell runs on Greenwich time, naturally, and when they got to the Hub, Bernie’s LoganBerry told him they were just right to catch the 6.15 showing at the Odeon, Leicester Square, London. As is or should be well known, there’s a hellmouth on the Piccadilly line platform of the Leicester Square Tube during rush hour on weekdays, which was perfect. They mingled unobtrusively with the crowd, aced the ticket barrier with their Brimstone cards and made their way up into the early-evening light.
“Here.” Bernie had remembered to bring sunglasses for Jenny.
“Thanks,” she said gratefully. “It’s so bright.”
“You get used to it.” She looked sensational in sunglasses. “Come on, this way.”
The square was crammed with brightly dressed humans out for a good time, though the atmosphere was curiously muted. It took Bernie a while to figure it out but then he realised. They were so preoccupied with not bumping into each other, which could provoke anger, harsh words and substantial expense, that having fun was the furthest thing from their minds. The pavement was scrupulously clean and litter-free, and the souvenir shops were all selling good-quality items at sensible prices which nobody was buying. Most of the bars and pubs had closed down since Bernie had last been there, though a few had reopened as organic food restaurants. It put Bernie in mind of Sunday in Switzerland, but without the raucous, carefree jollity.
“This is amazing,” Jenny said. “All these people.”
“It’s a popular place to come for a night out.”
Jenny frowned. “Reminds me a lot of work,” she said. “They all look so miserable.”
Yes, they did, didn’t they? “Deep down they’re having fun,” Bernie said. “Come on. We’ve just got time for an ice cream.”
Before they could cross the square, a window opened in thin air. No longer an unusual sight, but this one was huge. Out of it poured men in white plastic armour. The crowds, who’d initially stopped to stare, shrugged and carried on with that they were doing.
“You’ve got to hand it to their publicity guys,” Bernie said. “They sure know how to inspire apathy
.”
The stormtroopers were forming up into a dense phalanx and marching across the square, the pavement quivering under the impact of their boots. Everyone drifted listlessly out of their way except for two people, a young man and a girl, who broke into a run. They weren’t looking where they were going, and the man crashed into Bernie, nearly knocking him off his feet.
“It’s all right,” Bernie said quickly. “Accident. You didn’t mean it. I’m fine.”
And the curious thing was, no window opened, and no smiling clipboard-bearer stepped out of it. Instead, the white soldiers continued to march straight at them. And their toy guns looked even more realistic, the closer you got to them.
The young man was hobbling; he’d taken the worst of the damage by far. And the look on his face—he was terrified.
“It’s all right,” Bernie said. “It’s just a stunt. For the movie.”
The girl shook her head frantically. Bernie looked past her at the stormtroopers. They were still pouring out of the window, forming up, marching. There were thousands of them. I’ve got a bad feeling about this, he thought, appropriately.
“They aren’t human,” Jenny said.
No fear in her voice, just an observation, but Bernie knew in an instant that she was right, and therefore the picture in front of him was all wrong. But the young man and the girl were human all right, and they were scared stiff, and nobody had come to charge them for clumsiness, which was completely inexplicable. The stormtroopers were getting closer. Sometimes you only have a split second to decide.
“This way.” He lifted the young man’s arm over his shoulder and took his weight. “Follow me.”
“Aren’t we going to the movies, then?” Jenny asked.
“No, we’re rescuing these people. Come on.”
“All right. Where are we—?”
“This way.”
Back the way they’d just come, across the square, into the station. The human girl had money for the ticket machine, luckily, and the stormtroopers got held up at the barrier—but not for long, because they quickly blasted it out of the way with their laser rifles, so either the Disney people had finally gone completely out of control, or it wasn’t a publicity stunt after all. But they had all sorts of problems keeping step on the escalator, which just about gave Bernie the time he needed to get his untidy little party onto the platform and safely through the invisible barrier into the hellmouth.
“It’s all right,” he said, drawing a deep breath. “We’re safe here.”
The human girl was staring at him as the rush-hour commuters walked straight past or (apparently) right through them, oblivious to their presence in their transparent bubble of transdimensional Elsewhere field. “Where are we?”
“Hell,” Bernie said cheerfully. “Well, sort of. It counts as Hell, like the U.S. embassy counts as a tiny bit of America. Like I said, you’re safe here. They can’t reach you.”
Indeed they couldn’t, though that wasn’t stopping them from trying. Clearly they knew there was something there, a portal of some kind, though they couldn’t see or feel it, prod and scrabble as they might. But, unlike Bernie and Jenny, they didn’t have little plastic swipe cards; and no card, no access, them’s the rules. “Who are those guys?” Bernie asked. “Any idea?”
“We think they may be Venturicorp security,” the girl said. “It’s possible we may have annoyed the management just a bit, which would explain why they’re after us.” She hesitated. “Which means you could get in real trouble helping us, so if you’d rather we left …”
Bernie laughed. “It’s all right,” he said. “We’re the bad guys.”
A stormtrooper swung the butt of his blaster and hammered it against nothing at all an inch from Bernie’s face. Nothing happened, but it was a bit unnerving. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “We can go to my place.”
“Are you sure?”
Good question, and yes, he was. “It’s not far,” he said. “You people look like you could use a drink.”
Jenny shot him a dubious look, but he shook his head. “It’s OK,” he said. “Mr. L. likes me. Just for once, I’m going to take advantage of his good nature.”
“Just a second,” the young man said. “Did you say Hell?”
“Yup,” Bernie replied happily, because for some reason he couldn’t really explain he was enjoying this. Maybe an entire working life spent doing accounts and answering telephones had a tiny bit to do with it, maybe it was the warm glow of hero-worship coming from Jenny, on which he could have toasted bread if he’d had any and a fork. Who knows? “Come on. This way. Mind the step.”
25
Kevin opened his eyes, blinked and looked around. Then he sighed. “Hi, Uncle Gabe.”
He knew this place. It was basically a white box with white walls, white floor and white ceiling, no doors or windows, infinitely large but unmistakably confined. In his mind he associated it intimately with the words Go to your room spoken in a stern but not harsh tone of voice. I boobed, he thought. Ah well.
“Kevin, Kevin, Kevin.” Uncle Gabe shook his head. He wasn’t a scruffy old man any more, and Kevin shaded his human eyes against the glare of that transcendent brightness. “You just don’t think, that’s your trouble.”
“The humans figure that to think is to be,” Kevin offered hopefully, but Uncle Gabe wasn’t having any. “All right,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Uncle Gabe and Uncle Raffa looked at each other. “I don’t think sorry’s going to cut it this time,” Uncle Raffa said. “You just caused a severe theological incident.”
The far wall of the box turned into a screen on which a vast army of white-armoured stormtroopers were prodding at something that wasn’t there. Kevin winced. “That was me?”
“A direct consequence of your actions, kid. Let’s just say you’re not exactly popular right now.”
Kevin nodded. “Which is why I’m here?”
“For your own good. We thought we’d better get you out while we still could,” Raffa said gravely. “I’m not saying the Venturis would actually arrest you, but we reckoned, hey, let’s not find out.”
Kevin was shocked. “No way,” he said. “I’ve got immunity. They can’t do that.”
The two angels gazed at him sadly, six pairs of shining eyes boring into him, and eight pairs of wings fluttering in disapproval. “It’s not quite as clear-cut as that,” Gabe said.
“Of course it is. I’m his son. They can’t push me around like I’m some—”
Gabe clicked his tongue and shook his head. “If you’d been at the negotiations,” he said, “you’d know there was a lot of difficulty about that. The old man said if you chose to stay behind you had to be free and clear, total immunity. The Venturis said no, sorry, we don’t make exceptions for anybody. It came that close to being a deal-breaker.”
Kevin caught his breath. It had never occurred to him that Dad would risk the whole deal just for him. “You’re kidding.”
Gabe smiled. “In the end, the old man and Snib Venturi went off somewhere and had a long private talk about it, and basically they agreed that, as far as the Venturis were concerned, you didn’t exist.”
Kevin opened his mouth and closed it again.
“An anomaly,” Raffa said. “Like … well, you know.”
“Oh wow.”
“Which was fine,” Gabe said firmly, “and in real life, being practical about it, Snib Venturi reckoned he could turn a blind eye and simply not notice anything you got up to because the old man assured him, Kevin’s not going to do anything dumb, he’s a good boy, he won’t cause no trouble. And on that basis Snib Venturi said, yeah, what the heck. On the understanding,” he went on, frowning, “you keep your nose clean and your head under the radar, which the old man was sure you’d do because for all your faults you’ve got more common sense than a small piece of rock. He had faith in you, Kevin. You let him down.”
“But you guys …”
Raffa scowled at him. “We saw you abou
t to make an idiot of yourself with those two dissidents,” he said angrily, “so we stepped in and did the only thing we could, just to get you out of there. Otherwise, those Venturi cops would’ve had to decide whether to arrest you or not, and we didn’t exactly want a test case and a legal precedent.”
Kevin was looking at the screen. “What about my friends?” he said.
“They’re no friends of yours, Kevin,” Raffa said. “They’re just humans. None of our business now. And definitely none of yours.”
“Where did they go?”
Gabe shrugged. “We don’t know. And we don’t care either. Sure, it’s good fun to see Snib Venturi’s goons made to look stupid once in a while, but I’m sorry, the fun comes at too high a price. Wherever they are, they’re on their own now. Is that understood?”
On the far wall a window opened in thin air and all but four of the stormtroopers vanished. The quartet that stayed behind took up station on four sides of an imaginary box. They looked like they were planning to stay there for quite some time.
“That’s a hellmouth,” Kevin said, “isn’t it?”
“No comment. And don’t even think of hassling your Uncle Nick about it, because he’s got some common sense, even if you haven’t. He won’t get involved, you can bet.”
Kevin took a deep breath. “Listen,” he said. “I’m really sorry I put you guys on the spot, and I’m really grateful to you for looking out for me, and I know you’ve got my best interests at heart, and I definitely hear what you say about the Venturi boys, and I really don’t want to make trouble for anyone, believe me.”