We all leaped at the same time.
I landed on the bones, having no idea what to expect. My feet sank in a few inches, and I fell to my knees. I didn't even try to stand. I used the staff across the surface for support and scrambled for the other side a hundred feet away. Brittany, a soul with little weight, followed easily.
The Chameleon Cat stopped at the bones’ edge. It took a tentative step. The bones cracked and snapped under its weight, yet the huge paw sank only a foot. The next step, though, it sank up to its belly. The River of Bones flowed slowly, but relentlessly. The bleached white bones immediately began to pile up against the Cat's body. Even a beast as powerful as the Cat wasn't going to go against the bones’ inexorable flow. It let out a high sorrowful screech of frustration and backed out.
As I scrambled across, pushing against skulls and thigh bones and trying not to stab myself on rib bones, I kept glancing back. The Cat balanced shakily on all four paws, his long body bent like a U-shaped spring. I knew it was considering jumping on me, but unlike most demons in Hell it wasn't that dumb. But then, judging by the way it picked each paw up and put it down, searching for the perfect footing, maybe it was.
I never found out.
Suddenly, downstream, on the side I'd just left, fifty, maybe sixty, soldiers appeared. Dressed in brown uniforms and armed with everything from flameguns to sticks, they came toward us in a random fashion. In small groups or ones and twos, they were alert and obviously looking for something, but weren't having much luck being stealthy.
Astonished, I dropped down and with Brittanny in my arms squirmed and wriggled into the bones until they covered us. The Chameleon Cat roared once and bounded away, its extra long body working like a speedy inch worm. Shouts and a few low power flameballs followed it. Brittany clung to my neck, her cheek pressed to mine. We peeked out from behind a skull, and that's when I realized that instead of the bandy-legged minions I expected, most of the troops were souls.
Souls? Souls with weapons? Strange things were definitely happening in Hell. Several KKC Sergeants attempted to get them to spread out and be quiet. It looked like a training exercise. The souls wore new uniforms. Otherwise they were a ragtag bunch of Zombies of all ages, sizes, and sexes with pale bloodless skin. Their bodies weren't quite right though, with one arm longer than the other, a head too big or small for the body, little things. Despite that, they had a more substantial look than regular souls. Almost as if they were alive again. They had to be part of Mephisto's new army. The river had carried us about even with them when shouts and fireballs came from the opposite shore. Twenty souls, like the first ones, materialized from the trees. Yelling and firing, they came right up to the bones. This activity drew the first soldiers’ attention. We were carried along at a walking pace right between them. I willed myself to become one with the bones.
The Sergeant Demon of the first group looked at the new soldiers, then, too late, realized it wasn't right. A larger group came out of hiding and attacked them from behind. Some of the first group tried to escape across the river. Several scrambled all the way across, one came within a few feet of us.
Most times when danger presents itself I know I'm going to prevail. Hope springs eternal, is a given with Hell Cops, otherwise they have no business being in Hell. When Hope, the absolute positive knowledge that you will survive, dies, then a Cop is no better than a miserable damned soul.
Lying among the bones of the dead, Mephisto's strange troops only a few feet away, I was gripped by a bout of hopelessness more intense than I had ever felt before. A deep weariness washed over me like a slow breaking wave. Powerful forces were at work. Who was I to go against them, let alone prevail? Evil was abroad in Hell, and, after all, I was only a lone Hell Cop. It was absurd to think I might survive against Mephisto's power. It was absurd to even be a Hell Cop. I was helpless. What made me believe that I could ever survive, let alone return a soul to Heaven? Reech had picked the wrong guy to prophesize about.
I considered letting my body sink to the bottom of the River of Bones. Eventually my body would merge with all the other souls and Getter, the Hell Cop, would cease to exist. Perhaps in a millennium, or two, he might be reconstituted long enough to be tormented until torn apart so that his bones, flesh, and blood would once again flow in the three rivers.
The conflict in my head numbed me. I lay among the bones and stared uncaring at the soldiers and the trees and let the river sweep me away. Unconsciously, I wrapped protective arms around my little girl soul.
Eventually, I slept.
“Getter, wake up. Wake up.” A small hand pushed at me. I held still while I concentrated on remembering where I was. I had sunk deeper into the river and could see nothing but bones. My eyes didn't want to open, and my body wanted to keep drifting, but the hopeless lassitude that had overcome me earlier had faded, though the questions lingered, and I slowly roused myself to climb to the surface. Really having to piss might have had something to do with it, too.
Brittany floated on the surface while she watched the new landscape flow by. “Where are we?” she asked.
I stuck my head out and looked around. To the left, the valley had widened out into a broad, flat plain as dry and bare as the bones I rode on. On the right, steep cliffs of rough, crumbly, tan rock rose hundreds of feet, capped by sharp spires of ugly purple stone. The whole valley curved to the left. The cliffs sloped down in the far heat-shimmery distance to meet the plain. I couldn't make it out at the time, but there was an indistinct something ahead at that joining. My instincts told me I'd find Dimitri there—at the confluence of the Three Rivers.
The plain was as desolate a place as I'd ever seen in Hell, no demons, no souls, no vegetation of any kind, only dust and rock and heat. The bones flowed at a fast walking pace. The friction along the outside of the curve, against the cliffs, put tension on the bones. Their scrape and pop was constant and loud. Occasionally a bone popped up and fell back with a dry clack. Broken bones littered the steep bank. I saw no reason to walk when I could ride, so I lay back and let the river carry us toward the dark mass ahead that rose from the lonesome plain.
I drank and ate and allowed my mind to wander out loud. I told Brittany about my late wife, Julie. After ten years I still missed her. Sometimes, at home, away from the danger, I'd wake up in the middle of the night, crying, sure my heart was going to break with my need for her. She had grounded me to reality whenever I was in the unreality of Hell. Her beauty softened the ugliness, her need for me took the edge off my cockiness.
After she died, I didn't go to Hell for six months. When I returned, I didn't give a damn. I was reckless, endangering myself and others. Dimitri finally set me straight.
We had gone in together. He was after a woman, of course, and I was after a young man. We went to 42, The City. The city is clean and brilliant, populated by beautiful people driving expensive cars to gourmet restaurants or gala occasions. The neighborhoods were made up of gracious mansions, sprawling estates, or gleaming highrises with obsequious, uniformed doormen.
The only ugliness was the beggars, those souls whose greed, jealousy, or ambition had driven them too far in their quest for the life The City represented. They were doomed to wander the streets, ignored, or worse, laughed at, by the rich and powerful, their envy never to be satisfied.
I found my soul and, disregarding all good advice and good sense, snatched him up right in front of a group of demons masquerading as hip young people on the way up. The City may have been beautiful, but it still had security. There was a commotion, and Dimitri almost got killed. I managed to extricate us and the souls. In the Nexus, Dimitri smacked me hard with his fist, dropping me to my knees like a sack of beans with a hole in it.
“Wake up!” he yelled at me. “You may be pissed off at the universe for what happened to Julie, I'm angry, too, but don't let it affect me.”
“I didn't—.”
“Yeah, you did. You got to follow the rules down here, man. You know that. You can't just
take a soul like that in front of a bunch of demons. I damn near got killed, and it was your fault. Julie wouldn't have been real happy about that.”
“I'm—.”
“Shut up! Fuck, man, you may not care what happens to you, but other people do. I do. If you get yourself killed here you'll never see Julie again. Ever. They don't grant visitation rights, you know. Either way. So wake up. Get that chip off your shoulder and stop acting like an asshole and start acting like a Hell Cop, or get out of the business. You got that?”
Along with a cracked tooth, I got it. I cleaned up my act and tried to conduct myself in a manner that will make Julie proud of me when we meet again.
The hurt faded, but Julie's presence was always with me. I don't think she minded, too much, when her sister Christine moved in after Dimitri disappeared. We needed each other at the time and Christine reminded me so much of Julie, with her wide eyes and smile and fine blonde hair that felt so good on my chest in the lonely middle of the night.
Brittany said little. She shared tears with me when I told her about Julie and our daughter's death. I did not tell her that she was the same age as my daughter would have been. I think she knew, anyway.
I dozed again. When I woke, I thought I spied a lone Skyhook gliding high up in the pale sky. This led me to thinking about Ixsess and then Gregory and finally to Sneaker. Did she make it to the Gate with her young soul? How was she? Where was she? What would Julie think of her? They were so different.
They had their strength in common, though even that was different. Julie got her strength from the security of family and friends and a house she had made into a home. Sneaker's strength came from her competence which gave her the confidence to be able to rely on herself among the dangers of Hell. She lived in a mess of an apartment. She had few acquaintances and her few friends were Hell Cops. One was light, safe, family oriented, the other, dark, dangerous, a loner.
Plenty of what-ifs went through my mind, yet I was sure of one fact—Sneaker was alive and able to touch and be touched. Whether our relationship would ever go beyond sex and demons, I didn't know. I did know one thing, though. Christine reminded me so much of Julie that I'd never know where Sneaker and I were going until she was out of my everyday life. We had been brought together by Dimitri's disappearance. Knowing Christine's strong family ties, I suspected that whether Dimitri was dead or I returned him to her, the issue was going to be settled soon.
I stirred myself and looked ahead. The dark spot on the horizon had resolved itself into a huge fortress roughly carved out of the purple rock. This was Mephisto's Fort Blood. From half a mile away I felt the malevolence of the place. Out on the plain I saw a moving dust cloud, though I couldn't tell what caused it.
I dug out my binoculars and studied the structure.
Rough hewn, it loomed over the river. A hundred feet high, five hundred long, it had narrow crenulations along its top and squat towers at the corners all decorated with gargoyles. I thought I glimpsed movement by large shapes, though I couldn't be sure. The side I could see was seamless with no openings, not a window, not a crack, nothing.
“Getter?” Brittany tugged at my arm.
“Just a minute,” I said.
The fortress seemed to grow out of the end of the cliffs. I studied the crumbly rock cliffs, thinking I might find a way up and enter from there. A well equipped team of climbers could do it easily. Not me.
“Getter, do we want to go in there?”
“In where?” I dropped the glasses and looked around. “Oh, shit!”
We were going into the Fort whether we wanted to or not.
Chapter Twenty-five
The river had picked up speed while I looked for a way into the Fort. Now it was going to gather us in and all we had to do was survive the ride. A stone abutment stuck a quarter of the way into the river. It acted like a funnel, channeling the bones into a ragged oval opening. My heart went into overdrive.
“Crawl to the middle,” I yelled.
I followed Brittany as we scrambled on top of the bones away from the diversion. The current picked up too quickly, though, and drew us into the funnel.
I grabbed a small ledge with one hand and Brittany with the other. The air moaned as it was sucked in with the bones. The bones beat at me. A large femur smacked my fingers. I let go. Surrounded by a mist of bones, followed by Brittany, screaming in unison, we flew feet first through the opening.
What a ride—an adrenaline rush spiked with terror. I fell upward, somehow that made it a bit easier. I kept my feet together, hands crossed on my chest, and chin tucked in while I bumped and ground through total darkness on an E ticket ride to oblivion, screaming all the way. The pipe narrowed to a three-foot diameter; the sides were scraped smooth by flying bones. The rush of noise made it hard to think, which was good because my imagination was hyperventilating. I hoped I wouldn't be falling down at the end of the ride.
My worst fears were groundless. I was sucked straight up, then the pipe made a sudden right angle bend. A dim light appeared ahead. The pipe widened, and the bones and I were deposited on a gentle slope. Being heavier than the bones, I didn't stop as fast. I pushed up a good sized pile before I tumbled to a stop. Brittany, sprawled on her tummy, spun to a stop against my feet.
We were in a rock chamber about forty by forty with a flat polished floor. My body tingled as if receiving a mild electric shock. The bones spread out on the floor in a single layer and when I wasn't looking directly at them seemed to flow independently of the slope of the floor.
I rolled to my knees and oriented myself. The wall I'd stopped against angled back, directing the bones through a rectangular opening into a narrow stone trough. We slid toward it, too. I pulled Brittany onto a small ledge.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Do you mean did I die?” She shrugged and showed me a strained smile. She didn't know where the sarcasm came from either. “Where are we?”
From the higher vantage point, I saw that the bones were reassembling themselves, not necessarily properly. By the time they went through the opening they were full skeletons.
“Well, we're in Fort Blood, section 333. I've never been in here before. This is a skeleton assembly room.”
“I can see that.”
I gave her a hard, questioning stare.
“Sorry,” she said. Her shoulders squirmed as she hunted for words. “While we were in the bones I thought a lot about what's happened to me. I'm dead, but I still feel alive, sort of. But I'm in Hell, and you say you're taking me to Heaven. But my little sister died because of me, so maybe I'm supposed to be here. That Bujo said I am. You say I'm not. I hope you're right. But what if you're not? If I'm supposed to be here, shouldn't I be bad? Mommy didn't like it when I talked smart-alecky.” She hugged her knees and rested her head on them. “Daddy didn't either.” She ran out of steam. “I don't know what to believe or where I belong.”
My chest tightened and my eyes burned. Doubts were not uncommon in the innocents. Usually the more innocent, the greater the doubts. I put my arm around her quivering shoulders. She flinched but let it stay.
“Brittany,” I said, “You've been through more than most souls, in Life and Death. It's common to have doubts. I can't tell you where you deserve to be. You know. Just ask your heart where you should be. It will tell you.”
She sniffed and said, “But my sister and Bujo....?”
“Your heart, Brittany. Ask your heart.”
She turned her head. Her bunched up face regarded me with confusion, then the tears came. She came into my arms, and we shared tears for awhile.
“Are we going to rescue Dimitri?” she asked when composure returned.
“Getting you to Heaven Gate is my top priority,” I said.
“But if he's here, you can't just leave him, can you?” She tapped my chest. “Look in your own heart.”
I had reservations. We did have to get out of the fort, though, and if we ran into Dimitri on the way?
Through t
he skeleton exit the trough bent left. Faint music of undeterminable genre as well as the odor of formaldehyde and ozone floated into the chamber.
A small hole high on the other side of the chamber was the only other exit. I high-stepped over the realigning skeletons and climbed up to the hole. I listened and heard voices right on the other side. Startled, I almost lost my footing. I motioned to Brittany, and we flattened against the wall.
“You see anything in there that ain't supposed to be?” a whiny voice asked.
“Nah. Just bones.”
“What the Heaven's Lol talkin’ about, somethin’ crawling up the bone tube?”
“Ahh, he don't know nothing. Just making up shit for us to do. Fucking Supervisors.”
“Yeah. Let's get a drink before we go back.”
“Yeah, let's.”
The voices faded. I worked my way back to the hole. From my side the hole looked into a narrow passage that went right or left. I boosted Brittany through and, head first, squeezed through myself. Once in the passage, my first thought was, now what?
I had no idea of the lay of the place, but if Dimitri was held prisoner here, he was probably in the dungeon. I assumed that all forts had dungeons. The floor sloped left. Left it was.
The upper reaches were, for the most part, deserted. We saw or heard two pairs of guards, both as conscientious as the first pair. The ozone smell of electricity permeated the place. A single, deep, uninterpretable voice periodically joined the strange music that echoed through the halls.
Two floors worth of musty stairwell brought us to a heavy wood door. The voice and music came from the other side. The stairs kept on going down. I had to look anyway. I lifted the heavy latch and carefully nudged the door open a crack. Put my eye to it.
A wide balcony overlooked a huge chamber that Dr. Frankenstein would have been proud of. I had to see more. The door's hinges creaked as it opened wide enough to slip through.
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