Donny squirmed in his seat. “Well . . . I know you didn’t mean what you said about me to Ungo. I get that. But still, sometimes . . .”
She twisted in her seat to look directly at him. “Donny. Cricket. I need you. I told you that I need a human to assist me sometimes, and that’s true. But it’s more than that. You make me modern. You help me learn how to fit in better. But mostly, you’re my friend. So, what do you want from me? Just come out and say it.”
Donny froze. There were so many ways to answer that question. Some of the ways, he’d barely started to understand. But there was one thing he could say right now with confidence. “You have to be more careful with my life,” he said. “I think you forget how easily humans get hurt. Like Carlos. He was seriously wounded, but you didn’t seem to think so.”
“But you guys have doctors who stitch you right back up!”
“It’s not that simple. We’re not like the dead down in Sulfur. We might die before the doctors can help us. Or we can get hurt so bad that doctors can’t do anything.”
She nodded vigorously and pointed at her temple. “Right. Point taken. I’m storing that tidbit away.”
“Great. Also, you need to understand how scary some of this can be for me.”
“No doubt about it.” She kept on nodding. “But you have to remember something too, okay?”
“Sure. What?”
“I’m a beast from hell, Donny. Sometimes you gotta cut me a little slack.”
Donny sighed and nodded.
Angela leaned back in her seat. “I think I need a nap after all this excitement.” Her cell phone rang, and she extracted it from the pocket of her tracksuit. “Speak of the devil,” she said, waving the phone toward Donny. He saw the name of the person calling: HOWARD. For his profile picture, Angela had selected a picture of an aging billy goat. She answered the call and put the phone to her ear. “Howard, darling,” she said. She grinned sideways at Donny. “Are you feeling better? Oh . . . Hmm. Yeah . . . Sorry about that . . . Yes, it probably was uncalled for. Maybe you should spend a couple of extra days at the beach. . . . Yes, I found him, all right. In fact, he’s right here next to me. . . . What’s that? Of course you can. Here’s the little rascal.” She handed the phone to Donny. “Howard would like to say hello.”
Donny took the phone. “Hello?”
“Donny. This is Howard.” He sounded weary.
“Hi, Howard.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Actually, yes it is. We had a big misunderstanding. I’m glad Angela found me.”
“Is that so? Is she making you say that? If you’re in trouble, use the word wonderful when you answer so I can tell.”
Donny felt a wave of guilt. He had put Howard through all this for nothing, it turned out. “It’s all fine. I know that sounds weird, but it really is. Um . . . Sorry about this. I don’t know what to say.”
“Neither do I, exactly. We’ll just move on, I suppose. Can we keep what I’m about to say between us?”
“Oh.” Donny glanced at Angela, who had shut her eyes, a contented smile on her face. “Sure. Yes, definitely.”
“First, I want you to know that Miss Obscura confronted me and demanded to know where you were.”
“Yeah,” Donny said. “And I think I know what happened next.”
“Oh, did she inform you? Yes, I resisted at first and told her it was for the best, letting you go. She did not like that answer, and forced me to tell her as only she can.”
“Yeah. I know how that feels. I’m really sorry about that.”
“As am I. That was my first experience with her, shall we say, primary weapon. And I hope it is my last. I believe it shaved a good five years off my life expectancy. The funny thing is that all she got out of me was the name of the town before she dashed off. If she’d been a little more patient, I could have called and had my employee pick you up.”
“I feel really bad about this, sir.”
“Never mind. I just want you to know that I tried. Apparently she is quite attached to you after all, young man.”
Donny glanced at Angela again. She looked like she had nodded off, her head turned his way and her red lips slightly parted, gently breathing. At times like that, she seemed almost harmless. “I guess so,” he said.
“Did you get to meet your mother?”
“I did. I don’t think it was going to work out though,” Donny said. “She . . . she couldn’t handle me just turning up after all those years.”
“That is unfortunate. But it brings me to the other thing I wanted you to know.”
Donny waited for a moment, expecting Howard to continue. Finally he said, “What was that?”
“When you asked to leave Angela’s company, I wanted you to believe that reuniting with your mother was your only option. I thought you’d give it your best shot that way, if you didn’t hold back. But in fact, my man stayed close to you all the while. We would have retrieved you. There was a backup plan that involved a new identity, an excellent boarding school overseas, and eventually your employment in my organization in a very quiet position, well out of Miss Obscura’s path.”
A warm, pleasant feeling filled Donny’s chest. “I . . . wow. That was really nice of you.”
“Yes. Well, that all went out the window once our mutual friend went berserk. I told my man to keep his distance. But you were never on your own. And that’s all I had to say. I didn’t want you to think I’d leave you homeless in Colorado. I hear the winters are brisk.”
“Thanks. Thanks so much.”
“Shall we say good-bye for now? It seems we’ll meet again.”
“I think so. Bye, sir.”
The line went dead. Donny put the phone on the seat. Angela murmured something, then reached over and gave Donny’s arm a gentle squeeze. Her hand slipped off, her breathing slowed, and she didn’t wake up again until they’d reached the address she’d given the cabdriver.
CHAPTER 39
Angela sprang to life as they pulled up to a mansion that looked like it had seen better days, maybe about a century ago. She stuffed some hundred-dollar bills into the delighted driver’s hands. “Is that enough?”
The driver gaped at the cash. “That is so generous! I can buy my wife something nice for her birthday.”
She gave him two hundred more. “Make it really nice.” The driver pulled away, giving them a huge grin and a friendly farewell honk.
A nervous elderly man opened the door to the mansion as they approached. “You can calm yourself,” Angela told him. “I’m in a much better mood now.”
Donny tried to imagine the state she was in when she’d arrived to hunt him down. The old man gave Angela a wary look and a wide berth as they stepped into the house. “Hello,” Donny said.
“Everything is ready for you,” the man said.
“We’ll let ourselves out,” Angela said. Donny followed her downstairs to the basement, where a gas fire filled a brick cavity in the wall. Angela whispered into the fire, and a dark space appeared amid the flames. They stepped through a thin sheet of ash and into the familiar stone corridor. As usual, Donny was at the receiving end of some menacing body language from the little gatekeeper Porta.
“We have so much to talk about, Cricket,” Angela said as she stomped merrily along the passage.
“We do?”
“Oh yeah,” she said as she knocked on the ancient door that led to the cavern world. Grunyon, the imposing armor-clad guard, peered through the peephole and unlocked the door.
“Howdy, Grunyon. Sorry, no snacks,” she said as they walked by. “Yes, Donny, we have to talk. You know what we need? A recap. Go ahead—lay it on me. What do we know so far?”
“You want me to recap?”
She stopped and gripped him by the shoulders. “Yes, Cricket. You’re part of this operation. I want to know what you think.” She gave him a wink and a vigorous shake, and set off. Sulfur was in full wondrous, cavernous, luminous view ahead as he trotted after her down the
stairs. Somehow the place that human beings feared most was a welcome sight.
“Okay, so it turns out that the souls in Puerto Rico were stolen by a ferryman,” Donny began. “Which is weird, because it was the Ferryman King who told you to find out what was happening.”
“Yuh-huh.”
“So maybe the Ferryman King has something to do with this—although why would he ask you to stop it if he did? Or maybe he knows one of his own guys was involved. Or he didn’t know anything, and this will be a big surprise.”
Angela led Donny down a different, less-worn path than the one she usually took to her pillar home. This way led to where the River of Souls slithered by. She sat on a thick bed of black moss that grew on the bank. “Let’s wait here.”
Donny settled beside her. “For what?”
“The next ferry. I have something to say to those mummified clowns.”
They sat quietly for a while, and then Angela chuckled. “I can’t believe you thought I was Ungo’s girlfriend or something.”
Donny smirked. “That’s what it sounded like. He asked about you taking a mate.”
“A mate! Sheesh. That’s not happening anytime soon, I can tell you that. I’m not getting married till I’m at least two hundred. And no kids until I’m three hundred. If ever.”
Donny ran his fingers through the thick moss. “But . . . have you ever been in love, though?”
Angela lifted her chin and half closed her eyes. After a pause, she said, “Sort of. I guess.”
“Who was it? Can you tell me about it?”
Angela smiled wistfully. “He was famous. Before your time, though.”
“Famous? Really?”
“Yeah, really. You like old movies?”
Donny tilted his head. This was getting interesting. “Some. My dad used to.”
Angela tugged her legs into a pretzel and leaned toward him, her hands on her knees. “Ever see Destry Rides Again? The Philadelphia Story?”
“Nope.”
“Mr. Smith Goes to Washington? It’s a Wonderful Life?”
“Yes! I saw that one. It’s on at Christmastime a lot. About the guy who sees what life would be like if he never existed. Zuzu’s petals, right?”
“That’s it.”
“Wait, you mean that guy? The George Bailey guy?”
She frowned. “He had a real name, you know. Jimmy Stewart.”
Donny had heard the name before. “Seriously? You knew Jimmy Stewart?”
She turned away and stuck out her bottom lip. “I tried to get to know him. Here’s what happened. I went to the movies one day, and there he was up on the screen. This . . . perfect angel. The sweetest, dreamiest, cleverest, most darling human I’d ever laid eyes on.”
“How long ago was that?”
“I dunno, 1930-something? Maybe 1940? It was Destry Rides Again. He was a cowboy in that one. Total infatuation! I wanted to be in the movies with him. I went to every showing for a solid week.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing for a while. I just dreamed about meeting him. Saw everything he was in. Then I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to see him in person. Say hello, whatever.”
Donny felt his heartbeat quicken. “Really? And you did?” He did some quick math in his head. It was seventy years in the past, maybe more. “Wait, you must have looked like you were ten years old, though.”
She gave him a narrow-eyed glance. “It doesn’t work exactly like that, you know. I didn’t look two years old when I was twenty, for crying out loud. But yeah, I looked young. More like thirteen. But adorable, of course. Listen, I knew I wasn’t going to be his girlfriend. I just wanted to meet him. Okay, maybe in the back of my head I thought he’d want to adopt me, and I would have rolled with it, I tell you. Anyway, I started reading the Hollywood trade papers and magazines, and I found out he was shooting a movie. I had a simple plan. I was gonna put on a cute dress, stick a bow in my hair, bring some flowers and a framed picture for him to autograph, and go find Jimmy Stewart.”
Donny gaped. “This is my favorite story ever.”
“I jumped a fence and got onto the lot easy enough. A guard saw me and tried to stop me, but I induced a panic attack on him—”
Donny groaned.
“He was fine,” Angela snapped. “Probably. Stop interrupting. So I went to where they were all eating lunch. I looked around, and a couple of people looked back at me, and they smiled because I was just the cutest thing. I saw some other famous faces, but I didn’t care about any of them; I wanted him. And there he was. He had his back to me, but I still knew him. So lanky, so trim, so perfect. I had the flowers, and the picture pressed to my chest, and I walked toward him. Everything felt weird, like it was slow motion. The woman sitting across from him was some other movie star, I forget who, but she saw me coming. She figured out what I was there for, and gave me this big smile, and she reached over and tapped Jimmy’s hand, and I watched her mouth and I could tell what she was saying: ‘Jimmy, I think you have a fan.’
“And then Jimmy Stewart turned around and looked at me. He looked at me. I was two, maybe three steps away from him, just standing there. I remember how the flowers were shaking.” Angela paused and shut her eyes.
“What did he do?”
She opened her eyes again. “He sat there. He saw a darling little girl holding his picture, a goofy grin on her face. He smiled very kindly, like I knew he would, a really warm and genuine smile. He pushed the chair out and stood up, because he was about to be wonderful to me. But by the time he was standing, I saw the terror in his eyes.”
“Oh no.”
“Oh yeah. His chest started heaving, he clutched his shirt, his eyes bugged out. He stumbled backward, into the table, knocked stuff over, trying to get away from me. Jimmy Stewart was a big-time canary.”
Donny’s heart twisted. He knew that, in every crowd, there might be one person who was sensitive to her presence and might even panic if she got too close. How cruel it was that the one person she wanted to meet the most would turn out to be that one in a crowd.
“So I ran. I got away from him. It was the best thing I could do for him. And I never tried to see him again, not even from a distance. I saw every movie he ever made though, and every time he was on TV, even when he was just a sweet old white-haired man reading silly poems to Johnny Carson.”
Donny didn’t know who Johnny Carson was, but that didn’t matter.
“It’s funny watching humans get old. It happens so fast. One day he was this wonderful star, and then one day he was gone. I cried for weeks when he died. So much steam coming out of my eyes.”
Donny’s throat felt tight, and he watched as Angela stared into the distance, looking at nothing at all, just seeing whatever was inside her head. “Well, that was morose,” she finally said. She forced a smile onto her face.
The mood was broken by the familiar, bone-rattling sound of a great horn. It came from upriver.
CHAPTER 40
And here comes one at last,” Angela said. She stood and wiped bits of black moss off her tracksuit. A barge glided down the river, manned by the gaunt, creepy ferrymen and filled with hundreds of souls freshly formed into icy, waxy echoes of their former living selves.
Angela dug the jawbone of the Old San Juan ferryman out of her satchel. As they waited for the barge to draw near, she flipped it in the air and neatly caught it again. At last the barge rounded the nearest curve. The great skull and horn at its prow drifted into view first. There were two ferrymen on each barge, one fore and one aft. The dead were crammed shoulder to shoulder between them. Under the thrall of the ferrymen, they were unable to move except to turn their heads and gape with fear at their new surroundings.
The barge reached the spot where Donny and Angela stood. “Hey, you!” Angela shouted. The hooded ferryman at the front of the barge swiveled his head in her direction. Angela tossed the jawbone, and it clattered at the ferryman’s feet. The remaining teeth broke loose and skittered across the deck.
Angela crossed her arms and scowled. “Show that to your boss, and let him know it was one of you that was stealing the souls in Old San Juan. And tell him Angela Obscura wants to know what exactly is going on here!”
The ferryman said nothing. He looked at the jawbone and then locked his gaze on Angela as the current took the barge past them. She stared back, unflinching, until another curve swept the barge out of sight. Then she turned toward Donny, wearing a satisfied smirk.
“What do we do now?” Donny asked.
“First, we go home, grab Tizzy, and see what’s cooking at the diner. And then I think we head to the Hall of Elements and get some supplies. When we meet the next soul thief, we’ll be ready.”
CHAPTER 41
Donny gazed over the side of the rolling chariot. The road followed the rim of the old Pit of Fire, where millions of souls once bathed in flame. He had never been this way before, and it was his first look at this section of the massive hole in the floor of Sulfur. He saw wisps of smoke still rising, a few tiny pools of fire still burning, and more tall spires of rock topped with thrones where the archdemons once oversaw the suffering.
The shape of the pit was irregular, and he was surprised to see a place ahead where it narrowed to a width of only a few hundred yards. That space was spanned by a stone bridge, which was supported by great arches below. The runner imps turned onto the bridge and raced across the span. Donny leaned over to look at the floor of the pit. Far below, he saw a dark, oozing shape. It was a massive herd of wriggling, giant worms. He’d encountered a herd like that before, on his first day in Sulfur. He didn’t know whether to laugh or groan at the memory. Once, those worms helped torment the dead. Now they wandered aimlessly across this subterranean land. He wondered if they missed the fire and wanted it back.
As soon as they crossed the bridge and crested a gentle rise on the other side, Donny saw a lone building ahead. Sulfur was full of strange wonders, and here was yet another. The building looked like a giant stone beehive, maybe fifty feet tall. Dozens of chimneys bristled up from its roof and out through the upper reaches of the walls. As Donny watched, a black burst of smoke belched from one chimney, and a shower of sparks spat out of another.
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