She shrugged. “He was a boy I met in the Third Sphere, Ozymand Riyahd, a thief and the son of a sword maker. He helped me train and perfect my skills. But it was dangerous for us. Soldiers from my kingdom were still looking for me. We bribed a wizard for the magic to get to the First Sphere. Neither swordsmanship nor magic helped, in the end. Ozymand was murdered. Is that what you wanted to know?”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to go all Jimmy Olsen, but I needed to know what it was between you two.”
“Why?”
Spyder shrugged. “Because you have my interest. Because you’re not like anyone I ever met before which, I know, is an understatement. I like you, but I don’t want to go shaking my tail feathers where they’re not wanted.”
“Ozymand was my friend and will always own a piece of my heart. But he’s gone now. We murderers are a practical bunch. Just like on TV. When the first Darrin left Bewitched, they got another.”
“You know about Bewitched?”
“Uncle Arthur makes me laugh. But TV witches aren’t much like the real ones.”
Shrike finished preparing the tea and handed a cup to Spyder. It was warm and revived him after his sleepless night.
“Maybe you can get a job as a demon consultant in Hollywood.”
“I’ll be a stunt person for all the famous blind female action stars,” said Shrike. She laughed. “I liked Jean Harlow. Is she still in movies?”
“Not for about sixty years.”
“Oh. The way her voice sounded made her sound so beautiful.”
“She was. Good guess.”
“I told you: there’s blind and there’s blind.”
“Which means what?”
“I’ll explain later. Tell me about your friend. Is she an expert on Hell?”
“Lulu? Not hardly. She’s a friend. Sort of my little sister. I couldn’t leave her behind.”
“Can she fight? Can she find water in the desert? Navigate by the stars?”
“She can give you nipple rings and a nice labret.”
“Then why did you bring her? You know where we’re going. Every step of this journey is going to be over razor blades and landmines.”
“Things back home are steel-wool panties—somewhat uncomfortable and crawling up your ass. A demon’s pissed at me, and now everyone thinks I’m Ted Bundy’s cabana boy. If I’d a left Lulu behind, she would have offed herself or been offed by some solid citizen. You should understand about wanting to protect a friend.”
“She’s not one of your little harem girls?”
“Lulu’s my oldest friend in the world. And if she was going to do the Dance of the Seven Veils it would be for you, not me.”
“Ah. A girl’s girl.”
“She’d likely prefer ‘Soft Butch,’ but yeah. You’re not jealous or anything are you?”
“You’re the one whose penis has its own answering machine. I heard and smelled a woman coming on board…”
“And thought I was bringing a snack? Thanks for letting me know you still think I’m an idiot.”
“I don’t think that. We just don’t know each other that well, yet. In my kind of work, trust is important. And I don’t give it easily.”
“Neither do I, and I’m not even a killer.”
“Then, you should understand that I’m enjoying your company, but I’m not entirely at ease with it yet.”
“I’m right with you there, Calamity Jane.”
“We’ll know more by the end of the trip.”
“Not me. Aside from you, I want to forget every bit of what I’ve seen,” said Spyder. He lit a cigarette.
“These things are never that simple,” Shrike said. “I’m from another Sphere. When you lose the sight, I’ll be gone, too. If you saw me at all, it would only be as a ghost.”
“Balls. Madame Cinders said her book has the power to create and uncreate things. She should be able to bend a few rules about what can and can’t be seen. I want to see you. I don’t want to see anything that’s going to eat me; I don’t want to see demons or talking snakes; and I don’t ever want to see anyone with horns or wings.”
“Some of my best friends have horns and wings.”
“I’ll be your hillbilly boyfriend. Purty, but slow.”
“No problem there.”
“See? We’re halfway home.”
“And if Madame Cinders can’t bend the rules? What if, to regain your precious ignorance, we never see each other again?”
“We’ll deal with that when it happens. Besides, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing out here. I’m probably going to get eaten by a demon dachshund or shanked by a fire-breathing tea cozy. That’d solve everything.”
“Stick with me, pony boy. The talking dogs will have to get through me to get to you.”
Shrike laid her hand on Spyder’s chest. He didn’t move, but became aware of his heart beating and the movement of blood through his body.
“I think you’re sexually harassing me again, but I’ll let it go for now,” he said.
“Did you bring your books?”
“Jenny took most of ’em. But I know the important stuff, the grand schemes. The first, most important thing you need to understand about Hell is what Hermes Trismegistus, a famous alchemist, said: ‘Hell is like anywhere else. Only worse.’ Course, that sounds better in Latin.”
Spyder talked into the night, telling Shrike about the pits and traps of Hell—the cunning lies demons tell, the slowly spinning trees full of knives in the abattoir forests. Lulu slept nearby in the hold. Spyder checked on her from time to time and made her drink water. They sailed west all day and all night. Like bright toys, airships drifted in the distance.
TWENTY-THREE
DEATH IS NOT THE END
Among the greatest lies ever told, probably the greatest is that death only comes in one flavor.
Depending on the time, the place, the species of the deceased and its general standing in the universe, the nouveau-dead can find themselves experiencing any number of different types of death.
Most often, the classes of death experienced by humans fall into three categories:
Total Death. This is the typical human death. Sleeping the big sleep. Taking a dirt nap. The spirit has moved on and the body is empty meat in the cold ground. Nothing, short of some expensive special effects or an act of God, is going make a Total Death anything but a common separation of spirit and a feast for worms.
Hungry Death. This is a loathsome kind of half-death. Typically, the hungry dead end up as zombies—slow-witted, gluttons for human flesh and smelling like an abandoned pig farm. This is the category where you never want to find yourself. Too deranged for Heaven and too unstable to accept damnation in Hell, there’s no love lost in any Sphere for the hungry dead.
Petit Mort. The little death. This is the most elusive, but perhaps the most sublime human death. It’s reserved for those enlightened souls to whom death and life aren’t separate states, but the continuation of a single thought. Once they’ve made that initial transition between life and death, your typical Petit Mort spirit slips continually been the Land of the Dead and the Living Earth, wherever the action happens to be at the time.
Each state of death has a very different cast. Not all bad ones are punished. Not all good souls are rewarded. Luck or the lack of it, timing and intelligence are as important in death as they are in life.
A few of the humans who’ve experienced Total Death are musicians Buddy Holly and Bob Wills (plus most of his Texas Playboys); comedian Andy Kaufman; aviatrix Amelia Earhart; Picasso; cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova; Marilyn Monroe; and Hitler.
The hungry dead also include a number of musicians, most notably Jim Morrison; also actress Jayne Mansfield; serial killer (and the real Jack the Ripper) Frederick Bailey Deeming; author Ayn Rand; big-eyed child painters Margaret and Walter Keane.
The small Petit Mort roster includes most of the major prophets, plus a few artists, such as the painter Marcel Duchamp; singer Robert Johnson; inventor
Nikola Tesla, and Lilith, the first wild wife of Eden. Also in this category is a peculiar class of being, not quite human and not quite divine. These are the Tricksters. They slip between life and death for the simple reason that they refuse to take either state seriously. The Tricksters—Loki, Legba, the Painted Man, Coyote, Kubera and others—are pure chaos. Some cultures are certain that the Tricksters created the universe as a colossal practical joke, while others believe that as a joke is how they will end it.
TWENTY-FOUR
AMAZING GRACE
Spyder awoke sometime around dawn. Lulu was curled up next to him under a blanket on a big love seat. Spyder looked around for Shrike, but she wasn’t anywhere in sight. Water was boiling on the little stove.
He got up carefully, trying not to wake Lulu, and went outside. The steady wind was wet and frigid. Spyder wrapped his arms around himself and went to the bow where Primo and Shrike, in her heavy coat, were talking. As he rounded the corner of the cabin, Spyder saw what the two were talking about. Another airship was hanging twenty or so yards off the port bow. It was shaped like an immense black scorpion. A metal cable was slowly extending from the scorpion ship’s gondola, which hung from the end of the stinger.
“What’s going on?” asked Spyder.
“According to Primo, they’ve been shadowing us all morning,” said Shrike.
“What’s that line they’re sending over here?”
“A communication device,” said Primo. “I believe.”
“You don’t know?”
“It’s similar to devices I’ve seen, but I can’t be sure.”
“In any case, they’ll be tethered to us. I don’t like that,” said Shrike.
“What’s up, Spyder?” came a voice. He turned to see Lulu coming from the cabin.
“The neighbors want to borrow a cup of sugar.”
“Holy shit,” Lulu said, coming up behind him. “Are we happy about this?”
“I don’t think we have any choice,” said Shrike. “Spyder, not that I want you doing anything crazy, but would you go into the cabin and get that demon blade that Madame Cinders gave us?”
“Apollyon’s knife?”
Shrike nodded. “It’s wrapped in a silk scarf. If anything comes off that ship, I want to know we can kill it.”
“We going Texas Chainsaw on the other blimp, too?” asked Lulu. She pointed off to starboard.
“Spyder…?” said Shrike.
“Another ship’s coming out of the clouds,” he said. “A burning heart wrapped in thorns. It looks like a Christian sacred heart.”
“It’s the Seraphic Brotherhood,” said Primo, “pledged to the archangel Michael. They’re warrior priests.”
“Are they approaching us?” asked Shrike.
“No,” said Spyder. “They’re just hanging parallel a mile or two away.”
“There’s others out there, too,” said Lulu.
“She’s right. I can see a half-dozen other ships, but they’re mostly just dots.”
“Get the blade, Spyder,” Shrike said.
He ducked below deck and Lulu followed him.
“Lulu, I want you to stay in here,” said Spyder. He stalked around the cabin looking for the silken bundle.
“I’m no cotillion queen, Spyder. I can take care of myself.”
“Not when you’re coming off junk.”
“I wasn’t that deep in this time.”
On the kitchen counter, he spotted the bundle. “In any case, I’ll feel better knowing you’re safe.” Spyder found a butcher knife on the stove and tossed it to her. “But if anything with more than one head comes through the door, feel free to stick it.”
“That’s pretty much always my policy.”
“That’s my girl.” Spyder grabbed his leather jacket and headed back onto the deck.
“Hey, Spyder!”
“Yeah, Lulu?”
“Your kamikaze girl outside? She’s a sweet slice of honeydew.”
“That she is.”
When Spyder got back to the bow of the ship, the cable that had been spooling from the scorpion had settled onto the port railing, clamping itself in place with a single golden claw. A rotating disc had flipped open at the top of the claw and there was a grainy image of a young man flickering on a small screen before the wheel. The young man’s face was cut through with snowy scan lines. He wore a dark uniform of a severe cut (and marked with numerous medals and campaign ribbons) and a kind of silver ring around his head. To Spyder’s relief, he was clearly human. The young man and Primo were speaking rapidly in a language Spyder didn’t understand.
“Did I miss anything good?” Spyder asked Shrike.
“We’re being offered a bribe,” Shrike whispered. “The young pup doing all the talking is Bel, the crown prince of the Erragal Clan. One of the powerful houses of the Third Sphere.”
“What exactly are we being bribed for?”
“They know where we’re going and what we’re bringing back. They want the book.”
“I’m guessing these aren’t the kind of people Madame Cinders would have over to tell her troubles to.”
“It’s unlikely,” said Shrike. “Did you bring the knife?”
“I’ve got it under my coat.”
“Don’t do anything until I tell you. For now, we’re just playing a diplomacy game. Primo is politely telling the prince thanks, but no thanks.”
“What if he gets mad? Last time I looked there was fuck-all but water under us.”
“Those other airships should keep him in line. The Erragals are powerful, but they wouldn’t want to be seen shooting an unarmed ship from the sky.”
“Pardon me,” said Primo, “but the young prince is becoming very agitated. I don’t think that anyone has every refused an Erragal royal bribe before.”
“Tell him we’re on Hajj. Religious pilgrims can’t accept bribes.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Off to the starboard side of the ship, the sky opened like a sunbeam slicing through a cloudbank. A pale, sexless, beatific face appeared between the ship and the Seraphic Brotherhood’s floating heart. The face was glowing, like a child’s dream of angels, and when it spoke, its voice was like thunder.
“Fuck me,” whispered Spyder.
“I know that sound,” said Shrike. “God’s Army to the rescue.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Listen.”
All Spyder could hear was the echo and rumble of the transparent head hanging in the cold ocean air. The voice and the size of the thing weren’t what was most awful about it; it was the utter blissfulness of its expression. Spyder had seen faces like that before—especially the eyes—when being analyzed by court-appointed psychiatrists and being sentenced by compassionate judges who sent him off to juvenile work camps for his own good. They were the understanding eyes of kindly folk who burned witches alive to save their souls. But when Spyder glanced back to the prince, he saw that Primo had dropped out of the conversation completely.
Lulu emerged from the cabin, clutching the butcher knife to her chest. “Are we dead yet?” she asked.
“Getting there,” said Spyder. He nodded toward Bel’s image. The young prince’s flickering face was creased with anger. He was clearly no longer addressing Primo, but the Seraphic Brotherhood’s ghost representative. The wraith head nodded and calmly answered the young prince’s furious chatter. “The bribers are bitch-slapping each other,” Spyder said.
“Or arguing over who gets to suck our bones,” said Lulu.
“We’ll know soon,” said Shrike.
“Hey, Spyder?”
“What, Lulu?”
“When we were kids, did you ever picture yourself freezing to death while God and a big scorpion tried to decide who was going to eat you?”
“It’s not god, Lulu. It’s just some magic trick,” said Spyder.
Lulu hunched her shoulders and went over to the railing. She gave the angels the finger and began to sing at the top of her lungs, “
Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before…”
“Quiet!” Shrike yelled. “Primo, before I push these fools overboard, what’s happening?”
“I believe it’s over, ma’am.”
Spyder looked toward the beatific ghost head. It was fading from the sky. On the bow railing, the prince’s spinning disc was folding itself up and retracting into the cable still hooked to the port railing.
“He’s right,” said Spyder. “Everyone’s packing up and backing off.”
“We were lucky,” said Shrike. “Primo, set the course and come into the cabin with the rest of us.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Come on, Lulu,” said Spyder.
“I don’t think I like that Christian soldiers song anymore,” Lulu said. “I never thought about the words till now. Doesn’t seem very Christian singing about how fun war is.”
“It’s someone’s idea of Christian.”
“Not mine,” said Lulu. “When I die, make ’em play ‘Amazing Grace’ at my funeral, okay?”
“I don’t know that they’re going to have ‘Amazing Grace’ on the jukebox at the strip club.”
“What strip club?”
“The one we’re going to have your funeral at.”
“Cool. Can I come?”
TWENTY-FIVE
ANGEL FIRE
It was warm below deck, but Spyder shivered. He tucked Apollyon’s knife into his belt and pulled his jacket around himself.
Primo was pouring whiskey for everyone from a crystal decanter that looked like it was worth more than everything Spyder had ever owned put together.
“I thought we were on some kind of secret mission,” said Lulu. “Not much of a secret if every balloon jockey in Never Never Land shows up for the run.”
“Someone’s been ratting us out since day one. We got ambushed on the way to set up this job,” Spyder said, downing his whiskey in a gulp.
“Thanks for inviting me along, bro. This is tons better than being at home under the covers with Rubi.” Lulu, too, swallowed her whiskey and gave an exaggerated shake of her shoulders.
“Primo, did Madame Cinders tell anyone about trying to retrieve her book?” asked Shrike.
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