BURN IN HADES (34 page)

A bushel of calabash sat in the center of the table. Although the fruit didn’t burn the Raven, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t burn him. The underworld was too tricky for him to trust anything. He stared down at the bowl of barbot soup. Poisoning her victims wasn’t normally the demon’s style, but she was far from the generous type.

Diamond dipped her spoon into his bowl and ate. A sense of ease washed over Cross. The tension in his forehead released.

“I knew it.” He plopped down in the chair nearest to her. “I don’t care what anybody says about you. I knew you wouldn’t forget about me.”

“I could never forget you, Cross.”

He devoured spoonful after spoonful of the warm, salty, chicken-flavored barbot soup.

“So, what do
they
say about me?” asked Diamond Tooth.

Cross raised his face from the bowl and stumbled over his words. “Oh, you know. Not anything—just that you—”

“I’m only kidding,” she said with her distinct menacing smile. “I know what’s said about me. It’s all bad, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Hope the soup isn’t too hot.” She unbuttoned her top button. The round bulbs of her chest beaded with moisture. “How’s it taste? Not too salty is it?”

He shook his head. “It’s perfect.” Broth dripped down the side of his mouth. He wiped it on the back of his hand. “You were always a great cook.”

“Very kind of you to say. I’m so glad you like it. You know, it really is good to see you again. It’s been a long time since we last spoke. We have a lot of catching up to do. And I can imagine all the new tales you have to tell me.”

She touched his arm lightly. Her fingernails were painted red. He hesitated before sipping that next spoonful of soup. Her hand glided along his forearm and massaged his shoulder. He smiled and slurped the soup.

Singers belted out a slow and long-phrased tune outside. Their united voices lifted and carried through the walls of the shack, reminding Cross of when he used to sing with the other slaves while working the fields. It sounded like his favorite spiritual.

The first time he had ever sung “I’m Troubled” in the underworld, a teary-eyed audience had gathered in Vingólf Hall to hear him. The melody oozed of pain and sorrow, yet it was filled with hope and faith that the Great Goddess would not abandon them in dark days. Those kinds of songs could free a soul of all reality and take them to their most desired paradise.

Cross was sympathetic to the plight of those outside but grateful that he was in a warm shack with a friend and filling his stomach with delicious food. His mind drifted to the Raven. The needle-mouth imps had better be treating her well or there would be hell to pay. His appetite vanished as dread filled his stomach. If that stinking red giant put his big dumb hands all over her again he’d lop them off.

Diamond Tooth rose from the table and stepped up to the window. She gazed out into the camp for a second and then turned back around to him. “You were captured near, Ekera?”

He gulped devil’s water, belched smoke, and nodded.

She stared out the window again. “If you were with Simeon, then you were coming from Kurnugia?”

When she turned to him for confirmation, he nodded, playing along with her assumption that he was traveling with the Tribulation general, Simeon.

Her heeled boots clumped across the wooden floor and she stopped behind his chair. She placed her hands on his shoulders. “You came awfully close to the black lands of the Nothing. Weren’t you afraid?”

“A little.” He slurped more soup.

“Clem Balfour is an interesting name,” she said. “Why are you going under that name?”

She spoke much too softly and smiled much too widely. The make-up and the skimpy clothes were all theatre. Her extra friendliness was an act.

Sinuhe had mentioned that there were others searching for the last Toran. He suspected that Diamond Tooth might be trying to seduce the information out of him. If that were true, the demon’s pursuit of the gate could be a gift and a curse for him. He didn’t know whether to lie or tell her the truth about anything.

“It’s not wise to use your true name,” he answered finally.

She wrapped her arms around his chest and rested her chin on his shoulder. Their cheeks met. The sultry scent of her perfume hit him. It reminded him of Kate.

“That would make sense if Cross was your true name,” she said. “But it isn’t.”

“Just extra protection. That’s it.”

“Extra protection from what?”

“Just in case. You know me. Trouble rides on my back.”

She laughed. “It certainly does.” She lifted her head and massaged his shoulders with her rough hands. It felt nice to be touched, especially by a woman, but he kept his wits about him. No matter what she did, she would never get him to talk.

“So, Clem Balfour is just another pseudonym?” she asked.

“That’s a big word. If it means fake, then yeah. Clem Balfour is just another fake name.”

Diamond Tooth leaned over him and showed him the makeup kit he had stolen from Balfour. “This doesn’t look fake,” she said. “The name Tivoli is stitched inside it. That was Balfour’s true name.”

He played dumb, as if he’d never seen it before and reached to grab the makeup kit. She shackled his wrist to the arm of the chair with an iron cuff.

The singing outside swelled.

Ignatius burst into the shack barely fitting. Cross’s heart kicked at his ribs. He yanked his wrist up. The restraint held his arm in place. He sat helpless as the red giant thumped over to him like pissed-off steer.

The giant kicked his chair away from the table and out from under Cross. He tumbled to the floor, dragging the chair by his wrist. He scrambled to his knees.

Ignatius kicked him in the face. The room spun. He slammed back onto the floor. He caressed his numb jaw to make sure it hadn’t fallen off. Still there, but lights were blinking in his eyes.

“Start talking about the last Toran,” said Diamond Tooth.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Cross through his throbbing jaw.

Ignatius wrenched him by the shoulders off his feet. The chair swung at Cross’s wrist by the chain, and the weight strained the joint in his shoulder. The giant rammed Cross into the wall. The chair split apart. Ignatius reached down to his limp body, gripped a hand around his torso and squeezed.

“You know how this goes more than any other soul,” said Diamond Tooth. “You were never like these other idiots. That’s why I kept you around. I always knew you’d be an asset. You still can be an asset. Don’t go and get yourself burned for nothing. Just tell me what you know, and I’ll let you go, old friend.”

More voices joined in on the chorus outside. The souls beyond the walls sang for him and invoked the name of the Great Goddess. The power of their hymn entered his spirit and gave him strength. It instilled calmness in him, and he trusted that Magna Mater was watching. She wouldn’t allow him to endure any more than he could handle. She would not abandon him like everybody else had. The Last Toran was meant for him. It was his destiny, like Sinuhe said.

“All I know is,” said Cross, “I’ve swatted gnats with bigger wings than your friend’s.”

Ignatius wrung his fingers tighter and choked off his air supply. A sharp pain pinched up his left side. Cross opened his mouth to speak, but without any breath left in his lungs, nothing could escape. Ignatius loosened his clutch.

Cross took a few gasping breaths. “Just let me ask you one thing. When people ask if you’re chicken, do you answer ‘only half’?”

Ignatius tossed him into the wall, picked him up again and slammed him onto the table. The voices outside resonated in the walls. The cabin shook with their sound.

Diamond Tooth banged on the window and yelled to someone outside: “Make them stop singing!”

The red giant flexed his bricked muscles, and his puny wings fluttered.

“So those things really work?” said Cross in between gasps. “I thought you just rode some poor crow’s back to get from place to place.”

Ignatius clamped his enormous thumb and index finger onto the soft spot in Cross’s head and pinched. Bones in his face made tiny snapping noises like glass buckling and preparing to shatter. His head felt on the verge of exploding.

The choir outside roared, but the Great Goddess obviously wasn’t paying attention. Either she wanted him to give up the information, or she had forgotten about him long ago, which would mean all those times he escaped certain second death were pure luck and determination on his part alone. If so, he was a goner whether he revealed the location of the bone orchard or not.

He wanted to believe in the Great Goddess as he always had, but he smothered in the giant’s pressure, and his own black blood clogged his throat. Only a miracle from Magna Mater herself could save him now, and he had endured as much as he could. It seemed Magna Mater dismissed him like she did all the souls outside being tortured.

Living in the underworld was punishment enough, and those innocent prisoners had done nothing to deserve the extra punishment. They all sang in vain and Cross was now one of them. No one special. Sinuhe was wrong about the Toran being his destiny, or the Great Goddess had picked a fine time for tough love. Evil always prevailed in the underworld, and Diamond Tooth always got what she wanted.

“I’ll talk!” he cried out before he could lose the ability to speak. The red giant let up.

“What did Balfour say about the gate?” asked Diamond Tooth.

Cross coughed up blood and through his swollen face could barely get a word out. “It’s…buried under a skull.”

Diamond Tooth hunched over him. “Where?” A necklace dropped from between her breasts and swung in the blurred sight of his bloody eye.

“Skull Hill,” he said.

“Which skull?” she asked.

“I don’t know. The Raven. She knows. She knows the name of the skull.”

Blood from his eye dripped down the side of his face, and he could see clearer. At the end of Diamond Tooth’s necklace dangled a brass astrolabe exactly like one he had seen when he was alive.

A mysterious man and his daughter showed up to the Carson mansion, bringing with them a carved pumpkin in celebration for All-Hallow E’en. Kate and the man’s daughter, Phoebe, were instant friends. They chatted like sisters reunited after many years of separation. Phoebe was a much better friend for Kate than Vivian would ever be. Phoebe was much more considerate. If he could have replaced Vivian with Phoebe, he would.

The only part he disliked about this new friendship between Kate and Phoebe was all the giggling they did behind his back. They spied on him from around corners and from the windows as he performed him chores. Every time he’d turn their way, they would hide or run. It annoyed him greatly. He was glad that Kate enjoyed spending time with her new friend, but he wished they would have found something better to do and quit distracting him from his work.

At one point, they did leave him be, but their sudden neglect after observing him for so long only made him curious of what they were doing now that was so better than watching him from afar. Not that he was doing anything special, but he assumed that they were, and he wanted to find out what.

He ditched the house duties that he knew he could make up later, and went to spy on them. He checked around for Mr. Beckwourth and was happy to have memorized the majordomo’s schedule. Mr. Beckwourth was in the kitchen baking a soul cake. Mrs. Carson sat in the parlor knitting, and Mr. Carson was in his study entertaining his guest.

With everyone’s attention occupied, Charles snuck upstairs to Kate’s room and peeked inside the crack in the door. Kate and Phoebe sat on the throw rug in front of the floor mirror in total darkness. The curtains were drawn tight, and mysteriously the lantern wasn’t lit.

“So, I showed you mine,” said Phoebe. “Now let’s see yours.”

They whispered chants in front of the mirror, and a green mist filled the glass. A head without a body manifested within the green haze, floating.

Charles leaned into the door for a closer look. Wood creaked. The girls shot up from their bottoms and raced to the door. Before he could run away, they swung the door open.

Phoebe shoved Kate into Charles and high-tailed it, laughing. Kate stared up at him as if he had turned into a pot roast and she was a hungry coyote. He could feel her breath on his neck. His heart knocked with the beat of Cupid’s drum. She leaned into his face and laid a buss right on his cheek. His face warmed with affection, and life seemed to brighten with the light of paradise his mother used to tell him about.

Kate shot down the staircase along with Phoebe and skipped out the front door. Charles remained stunned and in a trance-like state. He pressed his palm on the cheek where she had kissed him.

The sound of a person breathing hissed from Kate’s room. But Kate and Phoebe were the only ones in the room earlier, and everyone else was accounted for. He grabbed one of Mrs. Carson’s precious statue heads off the wall shelf and ventured into the dark room, shaking and hoping it was just the wind and not an intruder.

“Come out,” he said into the darkness. “Whoever you are. Come out.”

The whispering came from the floor mirror. His face stared back at him in the glass. His shoulders shot upward, and his heart climbed into his throat.