Donny's Inferno

by P. W. Catanese

  “The strangest thing. There’s a natural vent for the Fire of Illumination over yonder—no need for refining at all; it just comes out that way. The imps who run that operation keep the vent capped. While it was unattended, the machinery collapsed into the vent, and a huge amount leaked out. Now the skies will be bright for days. No nighttime at all.”

  Donny looked at the intense shaft of light that came through the window. “Was it really an accident?”

  “That’s a good question,” Angela said.

  “Is it weird that first the fire got stolen, and now this?”

  “That’s an even better question. Go on downstairs, I’ll be right behind you.”

  • • •

  Donny was halfway down the steps when a metallic clang rang out three times from the front door.

  “Can you get that, Cricket?” Angela called from above.

  Donny went to the front door, turned the lock, and pulled it open. An odd sight was on the doorstep. It was an imp about his size, in a housedress with a flower print. She—if it was a she—had a pair of old-fashioned round spectacles, a huge paisley carpet bag slung over one elbow, and an umbrella that seemed entirely unnecessary in ­Sulfur. Topping it all off was an obviously fake granny wig.

  “Is that Nanny?” Angela shouted.

  Donny stared. This ridiculous creature looked like a nanny, more or less. Or at least like a bipedal toad dressed up like somebody’s idea of a British storybook nanny.

  “I Nanny,” the imp finally said, settling the question. She handed Donny the umbrella and brushed past him and into the room.

  “I guess it’s Nanny,” Donny called back to Angela.

  Tizzy bolted into the room with her arms flung over her head. “Nanny!”

  “Tizzy breakfast?” asked Nanny.

  Tizzy screeched to a stop. “Yes, I had breakfast.”

  “Tizzy nap?” asked Nanny.

  “I’m too old for naps,” Tizzy said with her fists on her hips.

  “Tizzy Candy Land?”

  “Yay, let’s play!” The two of them headed for the cabinet in a corner of the room that was stuffed with books and board games.

  Angela came down the stairs. “Isn’t she just the perfect nanny?”

  “Uh. Sure,” Donny said.

  “Well, maybe not perfect. She can barely talk, and she can be surly at times. But back in the day you should have seen her changing diapers.”

  “Stinky diapers,” said Nanny.

  “Gross,” said Tizzy.

  “She keeps an eye on Tizzy when I’m gone,” said Angela. “Speaking of which, away we go.”

  CHAPTER 17

  They left Sulfur the way Donny had first entered, up the tall stone steps and through the passageway guarded by the enormous armor-clad figure. “Any requests, ­Grunyon?” Angela asked as the thing opened the door.

  Grunyon tipped his head to one side and thought about it. His voice rang from inside his helmet. “Crystal Pepsi?”

  Angela rolled her eyes. “They haven’t made that since the nineties, sweetheart.”

  “Oh, right. Vanilla extract, then?”

  Angela’s head rocked back a little, but then she grinned and double-pointed. “Vanilla extract. You got it.”

  They stepped through the door. The last time Donny was here, he had been sick from smoke, disoriented, and on the brink of hysteria. Now, as the door slammed shut behind them, he looked with clear eyes at the passage curving out of sight. Around the bend, a dim orange light flickered. “So, this is the way up?”

  She raised her eyebrows at him. “It’s not literally up, you know. I mean, people on Earth used to think the underworld was down. Obviously, or you wouldn’t have named it the under-world. Coincidentally, all of us down here used to think that the mortal realm was up. But then you guys invented a little thing called science, and the evidence seemed to rule that out.”

  “But you don’t know for sure?”

  “Nobody’s ever gone to the roof of Sulfur and started drilling up, if that’s what you’re asking. Look, I don’t think you appreciate just how inquisitive you mortals are. You people need explanations for everything. How did the universe begin? What’s on the other side of the moon? Where did the dinosaurs go? Why was Two and a Half Men on TV for so long? Here in Sulfur, most of us aren’t that nosy. The only thing we’re curious about is human nature.”

  “Well, if you’re not up and we’re not down, where is Sulfur?”

  “Darned if I know. One time we had this evil dead astrophysicist down here. I asked him that very question, and he could only guess. He prattled on about parallel universes, quantum physics, alternate dimensions, wormholes, a planet with the same mass as Earth but with an unusual layer of open space between its surface and its core, blah blah blah.”

  Donny’s brain was aching, and he clutched his forehead. “Okay. So we don’t take an elevator or anything like that. How do we get to Earth then?”

  “Follow me.”

  When they rounded the bend, Donny saw the source of the light. Where the passage ended, there was a wall of ruby-red flame. It rippled upward like an inverted waterfall.

  A small figure, hooded and cloaked, no bigger than a toddler, sat on a tiny chair beside the fire, maybe sleeping. Leaning against the chair was something that looked like a medieval weapon, a short club with nasty spikes at its round head. “That’s Porta, the keeper,” Angela whispered. “Don’t do anything to annoy her. She gets her dander up in a hurry.”

  When they were still several paces away, the keeper moved. The cloaked head rose up, and a snout poked out and sniffed the air. It was long and narrow and reminded Donny of a baboon snout, but with scales instead of fur. The keeper reached down with arms that were far too long for her tiny body, and wrapped her hand around the shaft of the weapon.

  “Yes, Porta, it’s a mortal,” Angela told her. “The same one I brought down not long ago.” She spoke to Donny over her shoulder. “Show her my mark.”

  Donny frowned a little—he still wasn’t happy about this apparently permanent mark on his palm—but he raised his hand and displayed the winged O. That seemed to placate the keeper, who settled back on her seat.

  Porta raised one of her sinewy arms and made a sweeping gesture across the wall of flame. The fire transformed quickly, with a large round section that bulged from the center. It looked as if an oversize beach ball were pushing in from the other side. Shapes appeared on the bulge, and Donny recognized the continents of Earth surrounded by the dimmer orange of the oceans. The wall of flame had become a giant globe, gently spinning. There were tiny pinholes, whiter and brighter than the rest of the flame, scattered across the nations.

  “See the dots?” Angela said. “That’s everywhere we can go.”

  It looked as if they could travel practically anywhere. Europe rolled by, with those intense points everywhere. Then came the ocean. “But there are dots in the middle of the Atlantic,” he said. “There aren’t any islands there.”

  “Boats,” she told him, and then she spoke to Porta. “Manhattan, please,” Angela said.

  The keeper nodded then flicked a hand as if to spin the globe. It turned faster. With her spidery fingers she made a beckoning motion, and it pulled the features of the globe closer. Soon Donny could see the east coast of the United States. She drew the globe nearer again, and there was the familiar shape of the island of Manhattan.

  Porta turned to look at Angela. Inside the hood, Donny caught a glimpse of glazed white eyes, and he tried not to shudder. The keeper simply stared at Angela, her head bent to one side.

  “Right, more specific,” Angela said. “Greenwich Village, please.”

  The keeper looked at the flames for a moment, and then turned back to Angela and shook her head.

  “Not available? Let me see—I think that’s Midtown West? Well, we have some shop
ping to do anyway. I ­haven’t gone that way in a while.”

  The keeper nodded. She nudged the globe until the pinpoint she wanted was centered. Then she held both hands up, forming a diamond of space between her thumbs and fingers. In the middle of the globe, the flames darkened in a diamond shape like the one she had formed. As she drew her hands apart, the shape stretched wider and taller, and it darkened until it was almost black. The flames within the shape burned out and left behind a flimsy, wavering parchment.

  “Thank you, Porta!” Angela said. She took Donny’s hand and led him into the dark shape. It was merely the thinnest layer of ash, and it disintegrated as she passed through it. Donny felt a blast of heat on both sides for a moment as they stepped into what looked like a basement utility room.

  Donny turned to look behind him and saw Porta in the space they had left, waving the flames back together to seal the opening. Then all he saw was ordinary fire. I guess we’re in Manhattan, he thought. In a basement in the city, someone had kept a fire burning. It looked like a large version of a gas fireplace, with brick all around and flames shooting from metal tubes connected to a propane tank nearby. A vent was above the fire, and a fan whirred noisily.

  There was a man in the room, dressed in a sleeveless T-shirt and plaid flannel shorts, oblivious to their presence. He sat at a folding card table covered mostly by a jigsaw puzzle that had his full attention. On a second chair there was a pizza box. He had a pepperoni slice in his hand and chewed noisily while he stared down at the puzzle. A large messy pile of brown glass bottles was in the corner.

  “Incoming!” Angela bellowed through cupped hands.

  The man shrieked and shot up from his chair, upending the table. Jigsaw pieces rained onto the floor. The pizza landed with a splat, sauce side down.

  He clutched his chest with one hand. “I nearly wet my pants.”

  “There are products for that,” Angela said.

  “You scared me, that’s all. I never know when you’re coming.”

  “Well, here I am. Thanks for the fire.”

  “Anytime,” the man muttered. It sounded like “no time” was his actual preference.

  “Toodles,” Angela said. She tugged Donny behind her.

  “Er, thanks a lot,” Donny added. “And sorry about the puzzle.”

  The man watched them go with his fingers on his wrist, checking his pulse. They left through a door that latched behind them. Cement stairs took them up into the lobby of a rundown apartment building. They stepped outside onto the bustling streets of midtown Manhattan in the middle of a bright summer day. Donny took a deep breath. There was that familiar scent of New York, an urban odor that assaulted the nose like no other. It wasn’t altogether pleasant, with its whiffs of garbage, motor oil, hot-dog carts, automobile exhaust, pizza grease, dog pee, and stale air wafting from the subways. But it smelled like home.

  “I can’t believe we’re back,” he said.

  “Remember, I can take you just about anywhere. We could go to Paris just to get French fries.”

  “People just keep all those fires going for you? Why?”

  “Gee whiz, let me think. Because we pay them?”

  “Aren’t you afraid somebody will, you know, tell the world about you?”

  “Ha! Would you take that chance and double-cross me, knowing what you know?”

  Donny thought about that. “I would not.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t. It’s unwise to get on our bad side.” Angela took a phone from her pocketbook and turned it on. She pulled out another, hit the power button, and handed it to him. “Here,” she said.

  “You’re giving me a phone?”

  “Yup. You shouldn’t use your own phone, I assume. Being a missing person.”

  “Oh, right.” He had lost his phone the night of the fire anyway, dropping his bag while his father had chased him. His heart sank a little. A missing person. That was exactly what he was. Suddenly the idea of popping up in New York didn’t seem so smart, and he instinctively looked up and down the street. Was anyone looking for him? He jolted a little as the phone rang out in his hand.

  “Hey, it’s ringing.”

  “Maybe you should answer it.”

  He raised it to his ear. “Hello?”

  He heard Angela’s voice beside him and through the phone. “It’s me, you nitwit. I’m making sure it works.”

  “Oh. Yeah. It works.” Donny laughed and ended the call.

  “Come on,” she said, and she was three steps away before he took one.

  CHAPTER 18

  Angela took a lot of strides in a hurry, and Donny had to speed-walk to keep up. He couldn’t go faster without breaking into a jog.

  She stopped abruptly and stared ahead with her mouth agape in a delighted smile. “Doggies!” she said. An elderly man came toward them down the sidewalk with a pair of bristly white terriers on leashes. She put a hand on ­Donny’s chest and pushed him against the wall, then joined him there. “Act normal,” she said.

  “You’re telling me to act normal?” Donny said. He rubbed the back of his head where it had struck the brick.

  “Shush now.” Angela peered sideways at the dogs and put on an unconvincing display of casual behavior. She even puckered her lips to whistle.

  “What’s the big deal?” Donny asked.

  She whispered from the corner of her mouth. “I want to see how close they’ll get. They’re so cute!”

  The dogs approached, tails wagging furiously. Their mouths were open in canine grins, tongues lolling. Donny wondered why getting close would be a problem. The sidewalk wasn’t wide, and the man was about to walk right past them.

  When they were still twenty paces away, the tails fell still, and the ears that had pointed high flattened against their heads. The dogs slunk low and finally spun and turned the other way. Their leashes tangled around the man’s legs. The man laughed. “What’s the matter with you guys?” He stared up the sidewalk, probably looking for another dog, but only saw Donny and Angela. “Something spooked my babies!” he said.

  Angela scowled and grumbled. “Mmm-hmm.”

  “That’s because of you?” Donny asked quietly. “No way.”

  “They hate me,” she pouted back. “Watch.” She grabbed Donny by the wrist and hauled him down the sidewalk toward the dog walker. As they passed, the dogs backed away, over the curb and into the gutter. One snarled at Angela and the other whined.

  “Jeez,” the man said. “They never do this.”

  “Maybe they have rabies,” Angela shot back over her shoulder. She dropped Donny’s wrist. As she stalked away, Donny trailing, she stuck her lower lip out. “All I want to do is pet a stupid dog. Just once.”

  Danny trotted up beside her. “Dogs don’t like you? Like, all dogs?”

  “Not just dogs. Animals. All of them.”

  “I can’t believe it. Have you tried cats?”

  She glared at him. “Of course I’ve tried cats. They absolutely freak when I try to touch them. Once, I cornered one and grabbed it. It tried to scratch my face off.” She closed her eyes and stroked the air. “But it was so soft. One cuddle, I’d be happy. One stupid cuddle.”

  “Grown-up cat or a kitten?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “How about a guinea pig?”

  “They squeal bloody murder in the cage. Or they have a heart attack and go belly up.”

  Donny stared. “Rabbits?”

  “Likewise.”

  “Birds?”

  “Tell me if you ever see a bird anywhere near us, ever. Pigeons fly away, and they’re disgusting. Even turkeys run away, and nothing’s dumber than a turkey. Forget it, okay?”

  “Did you ever go to a zoo?”

  “Worst day of my life. It caused a riot. Every last animal went berserk. Monkeys, elephants, camels, zebras, all of them. The
tigers tried to jump the fences. The pandas fainted.”

  Donny thought for a while. “How about spiders?”

  Her nose wrinkled. “Who wants to pet a spider? I want to touch a sweet, fluffy thing, all right? Spiders! Cripes. For the record, bugs get out of my way too. Like I’m made of citronella. Stay near me and you’ll never get a mosquito bite.”

  There was an intersection ahead, where birds sat on wires that held up the traffic lights. Sure enough, as Donny and Angela reached the corner, the birds took flight in the opposite direction.

  “But . . . why?” Donny asked. “What makes the animals afraid?”

  “They know what I am,” Angela said quietly. She stared at the sidewalk. “And you know what else? There are some people who sense it too. And a few people, one in a thousand maybe, they get seriously unnerved. I call them canaries. I have to avoid those.” Donny looked at the crosswalk sign, waiting for it to tell them to walk, but out of the corner of his eye he sensed Angela looking at him.

  “What about you, Cricket?”

  “What?”

  “You sense anything when I’m around?”

  “Uh.” Donny thought about how to answer this one. It wasn’t fear he felt, that was for sure. “No. Nothing like that. I’m fine when you’re around. I feel good.” He felt a twitch in his gut. Was that the unnerved sensation she’d talked about? He didn’t think so.

  She narrowed her eyes and smiled a little. “Right back at you, Cricket. You know what I like about you?”

  He shook his head. His legs felt a little shaky.

  “Hanging with you, I feel like a kid.” She hopscotched for a couple of steps, then stomped the pavement with two feet at the end. “Now I think we need to do some shopping.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Angela dragged Donny into three separate stores. She picked out clothes for both of them then thrust piles of bills at the bemused cashiers. In a grocery store, they cleared out the entire stock of vanilla extract. Then they walked to Madison Square Park, bought cheeseburgers and shakes for lunch, and found a bench.