Hell to Pay

by Dick Wybrow

  It bounced off the Fiat, and she barely looked at me, just staring into the sky.

  "Don't shoot them, asshole!"

  She looked toward me slowly, unsure what she was really staring at.

  Then, like a licking tongue, a long strand of purple flew out from the right of the flying duo. Then another on their left.

  I sat up to see the purple boa grab hold of one shotgun, rip it away from the leather-clad gang member, and snap-toss it into the sea. The other boa, which must have been thirty feet long fully extended, wrapped around the head of the fat chicken wing guy, who'd been staggering to his feet, clutching his bloodied shoulder. He dropped his weapon.

  The boa released him and grabbed his shotgun, and it followed the same path the other did.

  That was all Sally needed. She was back up, standing with her pistols raised. One shot pierced the arm of a short guy in glasses, and he went down. The tall, lanky dude who'd been near Chicken Wing turned to run and got a bullet in his ass for his troubles.

  "Owwww shit!"

  Then the blasting started again from the other side, smoke filling the parking lot.

  The Actor and I could only watch as Angel and Uncle Jerry dodged and swooped, banked and arched, one end of the purple boa snapping out like a lizard tongue grabbing rifles as if they were dragonflies and tossing them into the ocean, the other knocking the gang members off their feet.

  Every time one guy lost his boom stick, there was Sally firing at him. Some took slugs and ran, while others hightailed it away before they had the pleasure, darting into the next lot, where their motorcycles likely waited.

  Then I saw the one with the black hat again. That one was different. He was patient, calm, tracking Angel as he rose and dove, knocking guns out of the hands of the motorcycle crew. He lifted his weapon.

  The shotgun in Black Hat's hand fired, and I heard a yelp of pain. Angel's left wing was smoking, and he spun for a moment, Uncle Jerry grabbing at the two legs wrapped around his chest. The phone in his hands tumbled and fell to the parking lot below.

  For the first time, I noticed a small green suitcase hanging from my friend’s back. It looked secured by a makeshift crisscross of seat belts.

  "Watch out for the one in the black hat!" I called out.

  Angel swooped back around behind me, twenty-five feet in the air. "Now you tell me!" he yelled. Then he flexed his right arm, and the purple strand shot out and wrapped around the weapon of the guy dressed in black.

  The man let go of the shotgun but wrapped both arms around the boa, pulling Angel and Uncle Jerry closer to the earth.

  "Bastard's got us snared!" Uncle Jerry shouted.

  "Leave Uncle Jerry alone!" Anza shouted.

  Black Hat pulled harder, taking lengths of the boa in each pull, but Angel couldn't break away. Uncle Jerry reached into his pockets and started throwing red foil packs at their adversary.

  They looked like airline peanuts. That didn't seem like it would stop him, so I did something very stupid. Halfway there, I realized I had started running straight for the dark cowboy, full steam. Sally was still firing at the fleeing gang members, and since Black Hat was unarmed, she seemed uninterested in the land-air battle happening in front of us.

  Only when I was about five feet away did the man even realize I was gunning for him. He briefly turned, looked down for his shotgun, but I was there. Leaping at the last minute, wrapping my arms around his, and taking him down to the ground.

  I heard a yelp above me, and Jerry dropped, landing in the cab of a Chevy truck.

  Finally, Black Hat let go of the boa, and Angel retracted it, tumbling backward in midair as he did.

  His leather was sun-baked hot beneath my hands, but I held on.

  "Get off me, Rasputin," he said in a deep, gravelly voice with the hint of an accent, then I felt a boot in my stomach.

  A moment later, I was launched backward. I flew through the air far too high, floating for a moment, then started to plummet like a rock. It was going to hurt, but just inches from the ground, I felt something grab me.

  "Gotcha!"

  It was Angel. He'd swooped down, wrapped his legs around my midsection, and was pumping his wings, taking me higher and higher out of reach.

  When I looked back down, all of the leather motorcycle crew had mounted their rides and were rocketing away. The man in the black hat was gone. A few seconds later, we dropped lower, banked toward the ocean, a vast, beautiful expanse of blue-green, then turned back toward the restaurant. Angel dropped me a foot off the ground, and I landed, struggling to stay on my feet, but then I ran over to the truck.

  Uncle Jerry was inside, lying on his back. And he was laughing.

  * * *

  Back inside the restaurant, there were smiles, tears, and hugs all around. It seemed impossible, but there we stood. The gang was back together.

  "You guys didn't forget about me," Uncle Jerry said, wiping his eyes. He was grinning like a man who'd seen the sun after years in darkness.

  Even the Actor seemed in good spirits. "You know, we took a huge risk to save your ass," he said to our pilot friend and got a bear hug for a response. He fought it off with a series of muffled "leggo!" shouts, but he didn't look like he was fighting all that hard.

  Anza kissed Uncle Jerry on both cheeks, then she hugged the Actor too. He didn't fight off those ones.

  Uncle Jerry looked over at the table next to a fireplace that was filled with empty Corona bottles, most of them broken. At the table were Sally and Angel. They sat on opposite sides, neither taking their eyes off the other.

  "What do we do about those two?" Uncle Jerry asked, laughing.

  Sally looked up and caught sight of the Actor. She reached for her holster, and a second later, a purple strand shot out and snapped her hand.

  "Ow!" the gunslinger said and shook her fingers for a moment, then scowled at the angel.

  * * *

  Anza ran a finger around the lip of her water glass. She looked at her roommate. "So, you are a real… you know."

  Angel was just a standard Mexican drag queen sitting in a tourist bar, his wings retracted. I supposed that might have caused a stir if any other patrons walked in.

  "Oh no," he said. "Not really. Just part-time."

  I asked, "What does that mean?"

  "I've had a slight… falling out with, you know, upstairs," he said and sipped a pink frothed cocktail. "I got in trouble for improperly using my, um, abilities down here. Big no-no."

  Anza said, "But you just been using abilities out there with the flying and the ninja purple boas."

  "Yes," Angel said and gave us a sad smile. "I can use them to help others, just not myself. That's the rule and one I can't break."

  Anza got a faraway look in her eyes. "You never told me this is what you were," she said. "Wait, this is why you offered me a room? Because…" She stopped for a moment. "Okay, I don't know why."

  Angel shrugged, took a small sip of his drink, and dabbed the corner of his mouth. "You're special, Anza. You have Sight. You can see the agents of above and below."

  At this, Sally grunted.

  "Which means you are special," Angel continued. "Me, I'm biding my time until I can get back in good graces with the home office, but having someone around that has Sight, could see trouble when it was coming, that was a net positive."

  The Actor slapped his hands on the table, and we all jumped, even Sally.

  "Enough happy talk. I'm running out of time!" he said. "We got Uncle Jerry back. It's time to go steal my hell contract."

  "What? What hell contract?" Uncle Jerry asked.

  I waved a hand. "I'll fill you in. In a nutshell, he's in mortal trouble and needs our help."

  Our old friend shot a sideways glance at the Actor. "Boy, you really know how to screw up a nice reunion."

  "Stuff it, old man," the Actor said.

  There was a strange sound, like the beginning of a rocky avalanche. Then I realized what it was. For the first time since the shoot
-out, Sally had spoken. She was laughing.

  "Y'all are so damn dumb," Sally said, laughing harder. "I mean, seriously. You have no idea what's going on, do ya?" She looked at us for a moment, waiting. Then her laughter died away. She shook her head and turned to the Actor. "Come on, then. Give us a yarn, Actor," she said. "Tell us about the night you, ha, sold yer soul to the Devil."

  The Actor blinked then rose from his chair, standing in front of the two tables like he'd just taken the stage in some Shakespeare-in-the-bar production. He paced back and forth for a moment, running his hand through his mop of hair. "It was night," he said, staring off. "The air was hot and sticky."

  Anza choked on her drink. "I don' wanna hear no porn story."

  "Let him finish," I said.

  The Actor cocked an eyebrow at me, nodding. "I'd been desperate to claw my way back into the light," he said. "There had been rumors that my character was about to be cut—a death scene in a dark cave that would have my princely hero go out like a prison bitch."

  Angel muttered something under his breath, which everyone ignored.

  He continued, "I wasn't going to go down without a fight. That is, not the cave fight, I would lose that because it's in the script. Also, because what chance would my character have against turgid, hairy goat-beasts?"

  "What is turgid?" Anza asked, but she was quickly shushed.

  "In early seasons, I was feted as the dwarf hero. That half-man who would be king," he said. "But then we went through a half dozen showrunners and landed on a woman who I may have, at some point, kind of screwed over. In a manner of speaking."

  Uncle Jerry laughed. "I bet."

  "Unfairly, I had gained a reputation as someone hard to work with," the Actor said, eyeballing the group. "And so my prospects after the show were low despite my immense popularity online. Social media. Not quite Taylor Swift but higher than even that slimy Christian Bale. The youth of the world loved me, millions of followers!"

  The Actor told us how he'd made overtures to other shows about possibly jumping ship for a role more prominent, but then his producers caught wind of it, sealing his fate.

  "I was desperate," he said. "And alone. Funny, that. You'd think as a Hollywood star on one of the biggest programs in the world, I'd have the pick of my friends. I had hangers-on, sure. But I knew I'd be standing, holding the empty bag, once I'd died in the cave buggering."

  So the Actor went through all the options he could imagine, but each time, his head came back to one thought. What I had done, or tried to do, to save my wife.

  "I went down to the crossroads, just like you," he said, staring at me with damp eyes. "Desperate, I was. Obviously."

  Shaking my head, I said, "You couldn't have asked for help?"

  "From who?"

  I raised my arms. "Us, man. Your friends."

  The thought seemed to startle him. He started to speak, stammered, then finally said, "But what could you do? You're just common folk."

  "Funny," Uncle Jerry said, taking a swig of his bottle. "And they say you're hard to work with."

  The Actor continued, talking about how he'd gotten a cheap motel in town and had started down to the crossroads two days in a row but then chickened out and turned back.

  "On the third day, I drank up enough courage and set out. The hiatus on the show was nearly up, so I'd have to be back in London. The walk was hot, man. I don't ever remember being that hot… I suppose that's because, you know, I was heading to the Devil's den or something."

  "Nah," I said. "That's Mississippi in August. Crazy hot."

  The Actor nodded. "It was all dust and dirt and old, dead crops. I only saw one other person out there, a woman who was walking away from where I was headed."

  "Oh?" I asked.

  "Yeah, big lady wearing several layers of clothes, yet she wasn't sweating a drop."

  I smiled. "I remember her. She jiggled my balls."

  "She… what?"

  Waving him off, I said, "It doesn't matter. She warn you about Randall?"

  "Who's Randall?"

  "Doesn't matter," I said but couldn't help but just smile. That all seemed like such a long, long time ago.

  "So, I get there, and at first, I don't even know if I'm at the right spot. All there is is a big ol' stump and one solitary tree. Just a few dead branches, no leaves. I sat down on the stump, and in that blazing sun, I guess I fell asleep."

  He continued to walk back and forth, delivering his monologue. "I was startled by a brisk wind. Evening had fallen, and I was so red from the sun, I looked like a burn victim." The Actor walked between the two tables, and we all turned, waiting. "Then I realized I hadn't woken because of the wind so much. There was someone there."

  He paused, dramatically. "The Devil himself stood before me, just like in the books. Tiny horns, pointy tail… even had a pitchfork. He was redder than I was."

  I was the one to break the silence. "Uh, are you sure? That's not how I remember the guy. Looked pretty, you know, humany to me."

  Uncle Jerry said, "He had tiny horns and a tiny tail? Are you joking? That sounds like a joke."

  The Actor fixed him with a grim expression. "Take a look at me, man. Does this scenario look like a joke?"

  The group mumbled, and I encouraged him to finish the story.

  According to our friend, after a short negotiation with the Dark Lord, he had signed the contract there and then.

  "King of Hollywood," he said, and a small smile crept to his lips. "It sounded so good, but looking back, it seems it would help to be less euphemistic and maybe more, um, specific about your desires."

  "Lawyer gobbledygook," Anza said. "You should have had me read it."

  "None of you were there!" the Actor shouted then calmed again. "I was alone and did what I thought was… what I needed, but in the end, it didn't work out that way."

  It was Sally's turn to laugh. "Because you wasn't dealing with no Devil."

  I said, "It was probably Randall."

  "Who's Randall?" Uncle Jerry asked.

  I frowned and shook my head.

  The Actor fixed Sally with a hard stare. "I saw him. This was… I mean, this was the Devil in all his glory!"

  Again, Sally just chuckled. "Horns and tail? Are you joking?" She grabbed one of the unfinished beers on the table and took a slug. "The Devil is, as they say, out of pocket for now." She turned toward me with a half nod. "Because of this one over here."

  "Me?" I asked.

  "Well, you and your lady," Sally said. "Right now, the downstairs is being run by a proxy. A real fat dude. Lawyer."

  I growled slightly, even surprising me. "I remember him. What a prick."

  Sally nodded. "But what you saw wasn't no Devil. It was the other guys. You got duped. In fact, in that sense, you got yerself double-duped."

  "Wait," I said, leaning toward the gunslinger. "Hell Inc.?"

  "Right. They been hanging out at the crossroads, picking up stragglers until the old man returns to stake his claim," she said and looked down her nose at the Actor. "Man, they just put on a show to get you signed up, and you bought it hook, line, and sinker."

  Angel spoke for the first time in a long while. "I think you saw what you wanted to see. Little plastic horns and a dime-store pitchfork, and you were ready to sign on the dotted line."

  "That can't be," the Actor said, his voice barely above a whisper. Then he looked over at Sally. "Then why are you helping them?"

  "Helping them?" Sally asked. "I work for the real masters of hell, not those wannabe usurpers. It's my job to put you down so Hell Inc. can't use ya. Those guys don't want you dead, amigo. They want you to be their spirit animal or something."

  I shook my head. "We're not going to let that happen," I said. "How do we find whatever strip mall or corporate warehouse where Hell Inc. might be keeping his contract?"

  Again, Sally chuckled. "It ain't any kinda warehouse," she said, looking smug. "More like a fortress. Big ol' tower, high as the eye can see. I think they might even have
a moat."

  "A moat?" Anza asked. "Who has moat?"

  "I had a moat in Season three," the Actor said, shrugging. "I miss my moat."

  "I hear it also has a mediation room, a virtual reality bar, and a damn fine cafeteria. There's yoga on Tuesdays and Thursdays."

  We all just stared at Sally.

  Uncle Jerry said, "Fine, fine. Where is this yoga fortress we gotta break into?"

  Sally chuckled. "It ain't really a fortress."

  Anza asked softly, "What is it?"

  "Think about it," Sally said. "This is the earthbound HQ of Hell Inc. Their one goal is to get the MX, the misery index, as high as they can so they can take over the downstairs. Create gobs and gobs of anxiety. Strife, depression, disillusionment. Basically to create the most despair possible for the human race. Where do you think it is?"

  It had been there in front of us the whole time, right there in front of the world, and no one saw it. The one place that destroyed families, broke up marriages, and fostered more anguish, gloom, grief, and sadness than every other entity on the planet.

  "FriendBook," I said. "The head offices of FriendBook."

  Sally just smiled and tipped her hat to me.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The six of us stood outside the bar.

  Looking over at our old pilot, I saw that he was carrying the green case. Pointing at it, I said, “Whassat?”

  He smiled. “Just some personal effects from my Mexican vacation.”

  Angel had already made it clear he didn't want to be within ten feet of Sally, so we would have to split up into two groups. Sally, though, still wasn't entirely convinced she wanted any part of it.

  Anza leaned up against the peeling stucco wall. With the gaze of a dazed cartoon frog leering down on her, she fixed the gunslinger with one of her glares. "Think of Boo."

  "Jes—can you please stop calling my Horse that godawful name?" The gunslinger's eyes flickered toward the tiny woman being ogled by the giant dead eyes above her. "Is that outta bounds by your reckoning?"