A wet nose pressed into the back of my knee. Coreen had turned Mr. Frog into a pitiful amputee. She whimpered at me, squishing the soggy stuffing between her teeth. Josie and I would have to do some shopping in Hell. They probably even had a pet supply store just for hellhounds. Besides, it was going to take a whole lot of shopping to take my mind off everything waiting for me when I returned.
Kevin slipped up beside Josie and wrapped an arm around her waist, giving me an unsure smile. “How’s the ride so far?”
“You’re doing good. How long until we get there?” I asked.
His smile widened with my compliment. “About forty-five minutes, I’d say.”
“Lana’s being promoted to the Posy Unit next year. Won’t that be great for your training?” Josie gushed.
“Wow.” Kevin gave her a playful squeeze while I tried to keep my eyes from popping out of my head.
“Don’t be telling everyone! The placement proposal may not even go through.”
“It’s just Kevin. You know, your apprentice, who has to go everywhere you do for the next century.” Josie rested her head on Kevin’s shoulder.
“Don’t remind me,” I grumbled.
Coreen shoved her nose in the back of my knee again, harder this time. I reached down to scoop up the mangled frog and hurled it down the deck. Coreen stumbled over a napping Saul, racking her toenails along the deck floor as she vaulted after the soggy ball of fluff.
I turned back to Josie. “While you’re busy spilling all my secrets, don’t forget to mention that shop-talk is off limits for the duration of this vacation.”
“What about the dinner with the Hell Committee?” Josie grinned.
“Don’t bring it up unless Cindy does first, or the consequences could be dire,” I warned them, twisting what was left of Mr. Frog out of Coreen’s chompers.
Chapter 34
“God is a comedian
playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.”
-Voltaire
Two demons met us at the gates of Hell and escorted us, after many groveling greetings, to a ferry waiting at the mouth of the flaming river of blood, Phlegethon. Charon, the Greek ferryman who usually patrolled the river Styx, reached out a skeletal hand to take our luggage. I hardly recognized him without his cowl.
“New dress code in Hell?” I asked, taking in his Hawaiian shirt.
“Casual Fridays.” He shrugged, grinding his shoulders in their sockets as he examined my passport with a bored sigh.
Charon’s career began in the Greek hell, Tartarus, but when Christianity tore through the land of the living, the ancient rivers refused to shrink within their new borders. They spilled outward, filling the new Hell with all their torturous glory, and saving many a Pagan demon from an eternity of loitering around the unemployment offices of Hades. Charon knew the definition of job security better than most. As long as the rivers endured, so would he.
Maalik and Gabriel flew over the small gap of flaming blood while Kevin, Josie, and I waited for Charon to secure the ramp slanted off the cast-iron deck. Amy leaped the distance, giggling when she almost lost her footing as my hounds followed her onboard. Two horned guards poked spears at the sooty souls howling and clawing the surface of the river with blistered fingers.
“What a perfect beginning for our vacation,” Amy sighed, popping open a cherry red umbrella.
“Yeah,” Josie laughed. “Nothing like a nice relaxing boat ride down a river of flaming souls.”
“I had hoped you would enjoy it.” Amy grinned, not quite catching the sarcasm.
I gave Josie’s hand a warning squeeze. I liked Amy, and it wouldn’t hurt if she put in a good word for me with Cindy. Grim’s comments on my pull within the council got me to thinking. I needed all the allies I could scrape together.
The Inferno Chateau was built on a dark, rocky cliff, overlooking a blazing lake of fire that the river Phlegethon fed into. It wasn’t the Promised Land, but it was breathtaking enough. Twin towers framed an open deck scattered with little gothic tables crammed full of horned and scaled patrons sipping cocktails in their bikinis and flip flops. Beasts of the underworld grazed in a pasture beyond a Victorian iron fence lining the property next to the chateau.
Amy stood and pointed up at the spewing volcanoes to the north of her retreat. “There’s where we’ll be going later. It’s been rated the number one volcanic hiking trail in Hell by Demon’s Health Magazine and the Fallen Frequency Radio Station.”
Josie raised an eyebrow and frowned at me. “No kidding?”
The ferry passed under a crumbling bridge. I held my breath and watched the monkey demons squawk and flap their webby wings at each other, hoping they were friendlier than the one who had possessed Mrs. Henderson’s mailman.
Charon pulled our ferry right up against another cast-iron deck, where Beelzebub greeted us. “Cindy wished to be here herself, but she had to deliver her report to the Hell Committee first. She looks forward to dining with you tomorrow evening and has even requested that I grant you the full services of her personal tailor for the occasion. Please, take my card.”
He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and handed me a business card listing his private cell number against an artsy watermark of his nickname, Bub.
“Wow, thanks.” Amy blushed at the high ranking demon while Gabriel tried to not notice the way Bub was staring his girl down. The angel’s wings flicked nervously as he stepped out of the boat and held his hand out for Amy.
Bub nodded to us. “Just call whenever you’re ready.” His cell phone went off in his pocket, ringing to the tune of Elvis’s Devil in Disguise. He dug it out and gave us a wave, walking away before answering.
“What’s wrong with the clothes we brought?” Gabriel grumbled and examined his tattered white pants and new flip flops.
“I’m sure Cindy’s just trying to be hospitable,” Amy sighed, tangling herself in Gabriel’s arms as he lifted her from the boat. “Are you jealous?”
“Just a little,” he admitted.
“Good, I can make it up to you later,” she purred, curling her tail around his leg.
Gabriel’s breath hissed out in a heady rush. “Later?”
“Or sooner.” Amy reached up and ruffled his curls.
“Where’s our room,” Gabriel asked the luggage attendant.
Amy’s idea of luxury and relaxation wasn’t too demonic to appreciate. The suites at the Inferno Chateau were worth trading your soul for. Mine and Maalik’s room had been decorated in shades of crimson and burnt amber. Artfully stained curtains hung in the corners, looking like golden candle wax, melting down from the ceiling. A god-size bed filled a tiered platform rising in front of a huge barred window displaying the frighteningly beautiful volcanoes I had secretly begun to worry about. Maybe I would check some death statistics before doing anything sudden. I’d been putting myself in enough danger lately.
Maalik rested his hands on my hips and pulled me back against his chest. His warm breath pooled over my shoulder, setting off fireworks in places I had been neglecting far too long. Something of the old Maalik was slipping through. The rush of relief I felt was almost embarrassing. He brushed my curls back with his fingers and planted a lingering kiss against my neck.
I sighed, melting into him. “I wondered if I was ever going to see this side of you again.”
“I had to take care of business first, but now it’s playtime.” He nipped at my ear.
“Aren’t we supposed to be meeting up with the others for the volcanic hiking trail?” I raised an eyebrow.
Maalik grinned and then kissed his way down my neck, wrapping his arms around my waist as he went. “I slipped Asmodeus an extra coin. We’ll have to go hiking tomorrow. It’s going to be raining fire until later this evening.”
“Raining fire? For me?” I laughed and tilted my head back against his shoulder.
He ran his fingertips up my arms and looped them under the thin straps of my dress. “Let’s not waste it,” he wh
ispered.
Chapter 35
“Friends applaud,
the comedy is over.”
-the dying words of Ludwig van Beethoven
“This has gotta be some sort of practical joke.” Josie winced at her reflection in the array of oval mirrors littering Cindy’s dressing room. The tailor had brought in a wardrobe of frilly, outlandish costumes for us to try on. I couldn’t quite bring myself to call them gowns.
Sequins spiraled over the scarlet fabric that looked like a turtleneck trying to eat Josie’s face. Revealing ovals had been cut out just below the throat and around the navel of the sparkly material before plunging into a snug, floor-dragging ruffle of tulle. Josie frowned at me and placed a hand on her bony hip. “I can’t decide if this thing makes me feel naked or smothered.”
“This one’s not so bad.” I brushed my fingers along the peacock feathers clinging to my dress and tickling my knees. The blue and green sequins were a little excessive, but the simple halter-tie around my neck seemed elegant enough.
I slid Saul’s crystal bands over my forehead, letting my ringlets tumble down just below my jaw. It felt strange wearing the bands outside of the Oracle Ball, but somehow appropriate. So what if Saul was gone forever, honoring his memory made me feel better. Sometimes the human thirst for spirituality really isn’t that hard to understand.
“I just don’t get it.” Josie stomped over to the wardrobe and parted the costumes with an agitated huff. “Cindy never wears stuff like this in Limbo.”
“But that’s Limbo, honey.” Amy waltzed out of a dressing stall and did a flamboyant twirl for us. She had chosen a black, strapless bodice and paired it with a deep red skirt that hissed like a choir of snakes along the dressing room floor. “This is Hell, the Vegas of Eternity. You know what they say, what happens here-”
“Stays here, thank God,” Josie mumbled.
“Don’t you mean thank Lucifer?” Amy crossed her arms. “I mean, he is the one who signed the treaty, vowing to maintain the borders of this territory. Old Jove may have thrown us out of the big house, but it’s not like he has some sort of border control set up around our perimeter.” Amy was sweet, even if she was a little dim at times. But at least Gabriel didn’t seem to mind.
“You want some help Josie?” I crossed the room to examine the crammed cabinet of flashy dresses.
“No, I’m only trying on one more of these monstrosities, hopefully one without sequins.” Josie sighed and pulled down a silk gown in creamy gold and orange shades bouncing off of each other. Dainty little strings tugged at the pinched material of the bust and tied behind her neck. “Now this is more like it.”
“Definitely.” I bit my lip and gave myself another glance in the mirrors, wondering how the Hell Committee would be dressed. I just couldn’t see Beelzebub in sequins, or Lucifer for that matter.
“Are you ladies decent?” Gabriel shouted through the door. “Dinner’s in five.”
“Is this decent enough?” Amy giggled as she opened the door and posed in the frame for my feathered friend- her feathered boyfriend. Three hundred years of friendship makes me a little possessive.
My feathered boyfriend and Kevin stood behind Gabriel. All three of them were in shiny, black robes, giving our wild dresses an even wilder appeal.
Kevin whistled and pulled Josie in for a quick squeeze. Maalik blushed at their display and wandered over to me, holding his arm out to escort me to dinner the traditional way, while Gabriel and Amy put on a steamy show that warranted a PDA trophy.
I rested my head on Maalik’s shoulder and stroked his arm like a smitten schoolgirl. I couldn’t help it. Why not? We were vacationing, weren’t we? Of course, sparkly dresses aside, having dinner with the Hell Committee stank of work and political hoopla. I quietly prayed to Khadija to make me impervious to all political mumbo jumbo until we got back to Limbo City. I just wanted to pretend that I was a retired and carefree goddess for one night. Was that too much to ask for?
“We’re in the main dining hall tonight,” Cindy told us excitedly, sending Gabriel’s wings twitching with every thrilling breath she took. “Construction was just completed last week, and this will be the first dinner held under the domed skylight spanning the entire dining room.”
The arched corridor Amy led us through glistened like a wet cave in the flickering light of burning oil dishes hanging from the ceiling by blackened chains down the hall. We came to the mouth of the passage and entered a grand room that swallowed us up.
Just as Amy had promised, a domed skylight bubbled above, giving a crisp view of the blazing night sky. Stray dots of raining fire kamikazied into the glass, bursting into multi-colored showers of sparks with a symphony-like rhythm. A glossy, black table stretched through the center of the room, looking majestic and just a bit dwarfed in a space that could easily hold the Titanic.
Tricked-out lava lamps fused with hellfire blazed down the table between dancing fire spirits, toeing the rim of their glass platforms to make soft, gothic music that sucked me into the setting. Hell had a seductive effect, as long as you weren’t one of the damned.
Through an opposite passage, Cindy Morningstar and her camarilla arrived, making a grand entrance that left me feeling a bit underdressed. Cindy smiled at our gaping and slowed her pace to give a catwalk performance to the dinner table. Black leather encased her, literally, from head to toe. The stiff gown brushed the floor and soared up into a sharp collar, framing her perfectly moussed curls, in a very rock-star-meets-evil-queen sort of way. The dress still managed a gluttonous amount of sex appeal with its thigh-high slits and plunging neckline.
Beelzebub and Lucifer were a step behind Cindy, both in sharp, deep red suits that managed to look formal and casual all at the same time. Beelzebub had spiked his hair into a wild Mohawk, while Lucifer’s shiny black mane hung in a loose ponytail down his back.
The rest of Cindy’s camarilla had been outfitted in complementing shades of yellow and red, elegant enough on their own, but together, they looked somewhat like a McDonald’s advertisement.
Through a third passage, the rest of the Hell Committee joined us, led by Iblis Shaitan, the Islamic devil, and a handful of his Djinn followers. Iblis nodded to Maalik and shot me a flirtatious grin. Maalik’s jaw went ridged and his grip on my hand tightened. Hell may have been his home, but he still considered himself a servant of Allah. The same couldn’t be said of Iblis.
We gathered around the table as Cindy stilled the tiny fire dancers’ music with a menacing glance. She seized the attention of everyone else by swiftly clasping her hands together. “As always, it’s a pleasure to be home.” She nodded to Amy. “The Inferno Chateau is quite impressive, and I am honored to dine here with you all tonight.”
A cork popped, interrupting her speech. Cindy gave the horned server a wide-eyed glare. He blushed and squeezed the fizzing bottle to his chest before quickly topping off the champagne glass in his hand and scurrying out of the room, spiked tail between his legs.
Cindy’s smile returned as she continued. “Before we begin the evening, I would like to congratulate Ms. Lana Harvey and her team for putting an end to Caim’s tyranny over the Sea of Eternity. Also, I want to remind everyone of Coreen Bendura’s valiant efforts and unfortunate death. She is with us always.”
Was that a tear I saw in Lucifer’s eye? Huh, who would have thought? The Devil may care.
After a guilty meal of sauced-up red meats and just as many sugary desserts, Amy dazzled us all again with her architectural expertise. Beyond a set of glass doors off the dining room hall stretched a concrete balcony over the back courtyard. A blazing stream from the lake of fire trickled around the chateau and fed into a small pond.
I shivered, despite the oven-like atmosphere. The view from the balcony was narcotic. After the bout of raining fire, a soft sprinkle of ash had begun to fall like a gentle winter snow. The ash stifled the flaming pond, forming a layer of smoky, swirling lumps over the dark waters. The pasture surrounding the pond lo
oked like frosted grass on an autumn morning, the soft gray piercing the ruby-stained night sky.
Saul and Coreen bellowed into the void as they tumbled over the yard, sending up dusty clouds whenever they pounced on the leather ball Maalik had bought for them at Hades Hound House. He was determined to make good on his promise to help take care of the pups. I smiled as he waved up at me from the picnic table where he and Gabriel were solemnly playing cards with the Death Deck. Neither of them seemed to be enjoying their stay. Well, that was angels for you.
Amy had run off to take care of some chateau business and Josie and Kevin had made themselves scarce as soon as dinner was over. Most of the Hell Council had adjourned to their rooms or were puttering around the private museum inside the chateau featuring work from the latest possessed Picasso. Amy pouted when Gabriel excused himself from visiting the historic exhibit. I’d go see it with him later, without three dozen demons breathing over my shoulder, thank you. Why take the risk?
“Lovely view, isn’t it?” Cindy Morningstar slid up beside me, the corners of her lips twitching at my spooked shiver. She rested her arms on the concrete ledge of the balcony and held her face up to breathe in the violent night, catching a flake of ash on her cheek.
I blushed and hugged myself, staving off the imaginary chill. “All the beauty of Antarctica cross-bred with the warmth of Hawaii. It’s phenomenal.”
“Yes,” she sighed. “Fifty years left on my term. Daddy didn’t tell me how homesick this position on the council would make me.” She hung her head and then turned to smile at me. “Not that your realm isn’t extraordinarily designed. I’m just partial to my homeland.”
I glanced back over the foreign landscape. “I can see why.”
Cindy eased closer, gliding her arms along the ledge. She lowered her voice so it wouldn’t carry over the yard. “I’ve received your placement proposal from Horus.”
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