Donny dropped to the ground as the keeper brought the blade over one shoulder, ready to swing it. Angela pulled the plug from the knockout bottle. A jet of sparkling green flame shot over Donny’s head. Angela had aimed it in the general direction of the gatekeeper, but the stuff acted like a heat-seeking missile and shot straight into the keeper’s mouth and nostrils. The effect was instantaneous. The ax clattered to the ground. The keeper went as limp as a wet tissue and fell with a thud.
Angela plugged the bottle. “That’s good stuff,” she said. She tucked it into her satchel and turned around, scanning their new surroundings.
“This must be somewhere in Sulfur, right?” Donny asked. They had stepped into a chamber at the end of a long tunnel. The wall of flame on this side emerged from a crack in the floor, much like the portal they used near Angela’s home. The ferryman’s sack of souls had been left to one side, next to a long shelfful of empty bottles.
“Definitely,” Angela said. “That’s a natural fountain of infernal flame. This is a portal that we never knew about. Someone’s kept it secret.”
“How long will that stay open?”
“I’m not sure. Long enough for the ferryman to cart all those bottles in, anyway, and that would take a while.” She stared at the empty bottles. “At least they recycle.”
Donny was in no mood for jokes. “We should get out of here, right? Before someone comes?”
“It doesn’t seem like anyone noticed our little scuffle,” Angela said.
“Which is awesome,” Donny observed. “Now we can leave, right? You got the ferryman, and you caught the gatekeeper. So it’s over.”
Agony stepped through the portal, ducking to fit into the chamber.
“That was quick,” Angela said. “Where’s the rogue?”
“He is dust and smoke,” Agony said.
“My assistant thinks we should leave,” Angela said. “I suggest that we look around and find out who’s responsible for this nasty enterprise. What do you think?”
“I prefer your idea, Angela Obscura,” Agony replied.
Of course, thought Donny. “But hold it,” he said. “Something might go wrong. The keeper could wake up. Or the fire in Cyprus could go out faster than you thought. We’d be trapped.”
“You have the fire escape, silly,” Angela said.
“Yeah, about that,” Donny shot back. He still kept his voice low, just in case. “Will it even work? We’re in Sulfur now. But you told me we can only travel from Sulfur to Earth and Earth to Sulfur.” He lifted the red bottle, still inside its protective case. “We can’t use this to get to Porta’s gate, can we?”
Angela smiled back. “Remember I asked the chemist for a type two fire escape? That’s what type two means. Sulfur to Earth. This will open a door to the temple in the Himalayas. We’re all set, Donny. Just keep it handy.”
Agony quivered with impatience. His bones rattled musically. “Do we stand and talk, or do we find out what lies down that passage?”
“We find out,” Angela replied. “Follow me. Quietly, my friends.”
CHAPTER 48
Almost as soon as they’d set off down the low, narrow tunnel, Donny heard a terrible noise start to grow louder.
Shrieks, moans, and screams.
The closest he’d heard to that sound was when he’d stood next to a scary roller coaster in an amusement park. But when screams came from a ride, you knew they came from joy and exhilaration. The cries he heard now were born from terror and pain.
He bit his lip and looked at Angela, wondering what she was thinking. Her features were arranged in a way he hadn’t seen before: eyebrows high, a tightly cinched mouth, and a crinkle of pain around the eyes. Then it was all wiped away by a look of rising fury. “I know that sound,” she said in a cold and lethal voice.
Donny felt anger emanate from her. Gooseflesh erupted on his arms. He tightened his grip on the neck of the pin-shaped vessel. “What is it?” he whispered back.
“Someone misses the old days,” she said. She started to walk a little faster, to Donny’s dismay.
“Angela, what is that sound? How do you know it?” She whipped a hand through the air, telling him to be quiet. But Donny was pretty sure that none of them had to worry about making noise. The screams grew in volume and multiplied. At first he thought they came from a dozen sources, but now he was sure they were the screams of hundreds, or even thousands, as the sound echoed in the narrow passage. A red, pulsing glow leaked in as well from the far end. The air grew warmer.
They bent around a final curve of the passage, and what lay beyond came into view. Donny saw a lone figure at first, standing with his back to them. He wore black pants, a red vest, a black shirt, and the kind of hat you’d see in a movie about old-time gangsters. The brim of the hat hid his head from sight. Rippling red light washed over him. He stared at something they could not yet see.
But when they took a few more steps, they could see it all.
The passage ended in a cavern, not much bigger than a domed stadium. A thousand points of stone hung from the ceiling above. In the floor of the cavern there was a massive pit filled with brilliant orange flames that twisted and writhed like living things. Donny had seen only a tiny sample of that flame before, but he knew it at once. Those were the Flames of Torment, meant to agonize human souls.
The screams of thousands rose from the pit. The sound made Donny want to shove his thumbs into his ears. He tugged at Angela’s sleeve. “We should get back, out of sight,” he said, close to her ear.
Angela stared at the lone figure. “I know him.” She didn’t bother to whisper.
“Great,” Donny said. “But let’s hide.” He tugged harder, but she didn’t budge. She let her satchel slip off her shoulder and onto the ground, then reached for the hilt of her sword. Beside them, Agony took his curved weapon from his belt, flexed his neck, and rolled his shoulders.
Donny wasn’t sure if the figure heard the crunch and grind of Agony’s bones, or if he turned around at that moment by chance. But he looked over his shoulder, and his body jolted in surprise. Then he turned and faced them.
Donny realized that he knew who it was too. It was a face that was impossible to forget, with human flesh on one side and demon scales on the other.
“Chimera, looks like you’ve been busy,” Angela said.
“Angela Obscura, the one and only!” he cried. Chimera clapped his hands, one of flesh and one of scales. He took his hat off and held it to his chest, and a wide smile spread across his face. When he spoke, he sounded as pleasant and reasonable as ever. “I can’t believe you found us. You must have come from Cyprus. Would you believe, this was the last night of that operation? We knew you were on our trail, but I thought we were safe for at least another day.” He squinted at Agony, who was running his blade across the tips of his bony fingers and emitting a low growl. “That’s not my ferryman, is it? Oh dear. I can only imagine what happened to him.”
Agony gave the same answer as before. “He is smoke and dust.”
“Is he really?” Chimera said. He shook his head and clicked his tongue. “Well, now you’ve gone and killed both of them. And that’s a shame, because we had room for many more souls. I guess we’ll make do with the thousands we already have.” Chimera’s gaze landed on Donny, and he smiled again. “And look who else has joined us! The little mortal! It’s Donny, isn’t it?”
The greeting was so warm that Donny opened his mouth to answer, but Angela spoke before he found any words.
“Where exactly are we, Chimera?” Angela asked. “Are we in the Depths? Is this the hole that the Merciless slunk into after the war?”
Chimera frowned and folded his arms. “There’s no need to insult me. You’re not in the depths. You’re in a cavern under my pillar. This has nothing to do with the Merciless.”
“All that talk about getting along, understanding one another better,” Angela said. “And here you are with your personal Pit of Fire. You lied to my face!”
Chimera put his hat back on and took a step toward them. Donny noticed an instrument slung around his neck—it looked ancient, like something carved from the horn of an animal. “I never lied to you, Angela. I told you that if the council was in favor of the Caverns of Woe, I accepted that ruling.” Chimera tapped his fingertips together. “But nothing prohibits us from building a pit for our amusement.”
Angela stomped a foot. “Chimera, this ends now. You will surrender the dead at once. We had an entire civil war over this, or perhaps you’ve forgotten.”
Chimera chuckled and rolled his eyes. “Oh, Angela. Why can’t you understand? I’m not being unreasonable here. You’re the inflexible one. You won’t even talk about compromise! Why can’t you have it your way, and let the true believers have it our way? This pit isn’t hurting anyone!”
The screams of the dead poured from the flames. Angela sneered. “Not hurting anyone? Did you really just say that?”
“Oh, you know what I mean,” Chimera scoffed. He pointed toward the pit. “Do I have to remind you? Those are the wicked dead in there, Angela. They murdered! They robbed! They were cruel and selfish! They preyed on the weak and defenseless! This torment is what they deserve. From the beginning, this is what the underworld was meant to be.”
“It wasn’t just the wicked souls, Chimera,” Angela snapped. “Your ferryman friends captured good souls too.”
Chimera frowned and raised his hands in a little gesture of surrender. “That is a perfectly valid point. Believe me, I asked them to stop. Apparently the good souls were more delicious than the bad ones, and my ferrymen insisted on that reward. I’m as disappointed as you about that.”
That remark triggered a rasping, furious breath from Agony. “Enough of this,” he growled.
“Time’s up, Chimera,” Angela said. She drew her sword. Flames swarmed along its length, brighter than ever. “Let those souls out of that hole, and I won’t slice you like a stick of pepperoni.”
Chimera took another step toward them. “Angela,” he cooed. It was the voice of calm and reason. He cupped a hand behind his ear. “Listen to those cries! That is the song of infernal justice! I don’t think you understand what this means to some of us. Just because you could leave it behind doesn’t mean that we could. We need it, Angela. We crave that music, and we must have it. Even those two ferrymen left their brothers and joined this cause because they wanted to hear it again.”
Angela whipped the blade through the air. “Ask them how that worked out.”
Chimera rubbed his human eyebrow, as if he’d developed a headache. “You wound me deeply, my old friend. I don’t imagine you’ll just walk away and let this be my secret?”
“There’s not a snowball’s chance of that,” she replied.
Chimera sighed. “Well, I suppose I don’t have any choice.”
“Out of choices. Out of time.”
“This is a real shame. I’ve tried to reason with you. But when reason fails . . . well, there are always other ways. As you might have guessed, I am not alone in this.” Chimera lifted the horn to his lips.
CHAPTER 49
When Chimera blew his horn, it was so much louder than Donny had expected. The notes rose high and clear over the cries of the dead.
There was a rumble of chains and squealing metal behind them. Donny spun around to see a gate of bars fall over the mouth of the tunnel. It crashed to the ground and cut off their exit. There was a large, toothy imp in an alcove above the tunnel, who had dropped the gate. The imp raised a spiky club and leaped out, meaning to land on top of Angela. It was a poor decision. Agony snatched the imp out of the air by the leg, whipped him in a half circle, and flung him against the bars of the gate.
By the time Donny turned back around, dozens of demons and archdemons had emerged from the pit, bounding up steps that were hidden by the fire. Each had a sword, a spear, a trident, or some other nasty weapon.
“There is something else in the flames,” Agony said. He pointed with his curved blade.
At the far end of the pit, Donny saw a disturbance in the fire. Something huge moved toward them under the surface. Hot waves rippled aside in its wake. The flames bulged upward and broke like water, and an enormous creature leaped out of the pit. Donny felt the ground tremble when the creature landed. Ribbons of flame poured off the towering monster and slithered back into the pit like snakes. This creature was bigger and more horrible than anything Donny had seen so far. And yet he knew what it was.
“Donny,” Angela said, “remember when the water imp attacked you, and I said it could have been worse, it could have been a titan imp?”
Donny couldn’t talk at the moment, so he nodded.
She pointed with her sword. “In case you still wondered.” The titan imp looked just the way she’d described it. Absolutely massive. Insanely strong. Dark purple with yellow spots. Claws like garden spades. This was the King Kong of imps.
Chimera sidestepped out of the path of attack. “My friends!” he shouted to the demons and archdemons behind him. “Angela Obscura has forced this upon us. We must kill all these intruders to keep our secret safe—Obscura, the ferryman, and the mortal!” The demons hissed, and the titan imp bellowed.
“Agony,” Angela said. “We can’t handle that titan imp, even together. But don’t worry: we have a way out.” She backed toward the wall of the cavern.
Agony seemed perfectly content to retreat alongside her. “I am glad to hear it,” the ferryman said.
Donny finally managed to get his voice working again. “Fire escape?”
Angela nodded. “Absolutely. Just throw it against the wall.”
Before he could draw the red vessel from its pouch, he heard a thunderous crack. When he looked up, the titan imp had reached for one of the hanging stalactites and snapped it off. In the same motion, he hurled it at them. It came in a blur, spinning like a propeller.
“Donny!” Angela screamed. She threw herself in front of him. The stone hit the ground and broke into fat chunks that rolled like dice. One struck Angela hard. It knocked her sword from her grip, and she slammed into Donny. They tumbled across the ground.
Donny rolled to a stop and lifted his head, seeing double. The largest chunk of stone had tumbled on top of Agony and pinned him there, his arms and legs twitching on either side. Angela was barely conscious. Her eyes were closed and her teeth were clamped tight. Steam leaked from a gash on her temple. She pulled the bracelet off her wrist, to start the transformation that would help her heal.
The ground trembled. As Donny got to his feet, he looked back to see the titan imp coming at them. The red bottle was still in Donny’s hand—he had managed to hold on to it when he’d fallen. He tugged it from its pouch and lifted it over his shoulder like a football, ready to dash it against the wall.
If he did that, a fiery portal would open instantly, and he would be able to escape. Angela was still on the ground, unable to rise, barely aware of what was happening. Could he open the portal and drag her through before the monster was upon them? There was no chance of that. Angela was doomed, and if he tried to save her, he would only die with her.
A shadow fell across him as the titan imp blotted out the light of the pit. The beast was two steps away. Donny looked again at the vessel of glass, and a wild idea came to him. Before it was even half formed in his head, he acted on it. With all the strength he had, he hurled the vessel at the titan imp. The red bottle spun through the air and smashed into the imp’s chest. The beast was reaching for Donny, those deadly claws inches away, when a great circle of flame blossomed.
A cloud of smoke exploded from the spot. Donny heard the imp roar, and then the roar ended with a sick, soggy gasp. The sooty cloud shot past Donny. As it passed, he was sure he heard a whispering voice amid the smoke. He’d heard that sound before, when Angela spoke her incantation to open a fire-portal.
Of all the insane sights he’d seen since meeting Angela Obscura, this was the craziest yet. The titan imp rocked unsteadily on
his feet and stared dumbly at a gaping hole in his chest. The hole was round, ragged, and ablaze at the edges. It was covered with a thin membrane of ash that was suddenly clawed open from the other side. When the ash was gone, it revealed a familiar sight. Donny was looking into the lost temple in the Himalayas. As the titan imp staggered, the vision of the temple shifted with him, as if it were on a television lodged inside the beast’s body.
The temple was currently occupied by a small army of heavily armed, glossy white and black imps, some large and some small, who stormed forward and leaped out of the hole, two by two. Ungo’s chessmen! thought Donny. Even the titan imp seemed to be astonished as he witnessed the bizarre sight of armed imps leaping out of his torso. He even reached out and grabbed a black pawn around the waist, but he was too feeble to hold on for long. The monster’s strength gave out completely. He fell, his back against the wall of the cave, and his head wobbled and sagged to one side.
Chimera and his gang were stunned by the sight. As more and more of the chessmen emerged, they paused, as if wondering how many opponents they would be facing.
Ungo Cataracta was the last to leap from the portal. Steam blasted from the cracks in his skull. He looked startled for a moment to see what he had stepped out of. Then he noticed Angela on the ground.
“Angela!” he cried.
Angela was fully transformed into her sleek-scaled demon form. She was still weak, but at least more alert. “I’m fine. My human saved me. Do me a favor and put Chimera in chains, will you?”
Ungo turned toward Chimera, his gaze furious. Chimera stood at the center of his small army, armed now with a pair of long daggers. Ungo pumped his long-handled, ax-headed weapon in the air. He screamed and charged, and his chessmen followed.
Donny felt a hand on his ankle. He saw Angela looking up, her eyes just starting to focus again. “Genius move,” she said.
“Thanks,” said Donny.
Her voice was still thick and groggy. “Not your move. Mine. I had Ungo and his chessmen waiting in the temple. The fire escape was to summon them.” She rubbed the side of her head and surveyed the situation. Chimera’s demons had backed away and made their stand on a narrow ledge on the far side of the pit. The chessmen charged and slashed, pushing them back. The pawns fired crossbows, and Chimera’s demons shrieked with fury when the arrows struck.
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