BURN IN HADES (8 page)

“Yes-sss, it is-sss you,” said the chieftain.

“You can’t even see,” said Cross. “All your eyes are covered under a layer of skin. And you don’t even have eyes under that, you ugly piece of—”

The chief jammed a lanky claw in Cross’s mouth. He gagged on the grainy and salty toe.

“Dependence on sss-sight,” said the chieftain, “is-sss for those sss-souls-sss who lack faith.”

The toe slipped out of Cross’s mouth and he dry heaved trying to vomit. The Raven exited the cave carrying a burlap sack full of the objects of the dead that the squals had rewarded her with for turning him in.

“The chief’s giving her your precious, hard earned objects,” Cross yelled out to the crowd of squals. They ignored him. The Raven stepped over him.

“Those objects will destroy you,” Cross shouted to her. “The Great Goddess hates your kind. You know who you are, Raven? I know whose daughter you are. You’re the daughter of Lilith, the very first whore!”

The Raven stomped her boot on his stomach. He curled up and rolled to his side unable to comfort the pain as his hands were flush against his sides.

“You bitch!” he said. “I never hurt anybody!”

The Raven tossed the sack over her shoulder, saddled his cornurus and rode off into the shadows.

“You vulture!” he called after her. “Come back here!”

The chieftain and her minions circled him and lifted him up.

“All of you,” said Cross. “You’re nothing. Nothing but a deck of cards. I’ll burn you all down.”

The minions placed him on a rocky platform and prayed over him in their miserable language. He prayed to the Great Goddess and wished he could cross himself.

“The Great Goddess hates you miserable souls,” said Cross. “That’s why you’re so ugly. You’re cursed. You can have my memories, but you’ll always be deformed and hideous.” He laughed through his terror as sweat dribbled down his forehead and dipped behind his ear.

The chieftain slipped her slimy fingers under Cross’s chin and curled his cold palms around his neck. Stringy saliva dripped on his face.

“Cross-sss,” said the chieftain, “known as-sss the Man Who Remembers-sss, wanted in more than thirty realms-sss, is-sss finally ours-sss. His-sss neck will be sss-sliced open. His-sss blood sss-shall flow. His-sss head sss-shall fall into our hands-sss. We sss-shall devour his-sss fles-sss-sh and all his-sss memories-sss will be with us-sss. May the Great Goddess-sss have mercy on his sss-soul.”

“To Hell with all you squals and all who gave birth to you!” yelled Cross.

“To Hell we have already been.” The chieftain raised a sharpened stone above Cross. Every single squal erupted in a joyous hiss that echoed in the mountain walls.

His face was drenched in a combination of his own sweat, tears and squal saliva. His breathing sharpened to the point that he could barely inhale. He closed his eyes, preparing to be executed for things he knew but wished he didn’t. All his life, and afterlife, everyone always wanted something from him. He was tired. Maybe it was for the best that he go.

A crack of lightning boomed around him, stinging the air. That whipping noise he’d heard before the Raven saved him from the Rudimen sliced through the air. The squals screamed and hissed in terror. Cross opened his eyes to see the chieftain spinning wildly through the air. She crash landed into the vertical rock face.

Cross rose up from the slab of stone. The rope was no longer wrapped around his body. He thanked the Great Goddess for delivering him from evil and scooted off the rock.

All the squals gawked up at the mountain where his savior stood. Her intimidating wings spread angelically, the skirt of her justaucorps whipped in the wind. Streams of light beamed from her and struck squals like lightning.

The Raven swooped down onto Gimlet’s saddle and her eyes fell on him. She stalled as though waiting for him.

He understood now. She’d just used him as bait to con the squals out of their objects. It wasn’t the most ingenious scheme; it was the oldest trick in the book in fact, but it was certainly well played. He just didn’t appreciate not being let in on the con. He used to run swindles in his past life. He could have helped.

He rammed his shoulder through a group of three squals, bowling them over. The Raven whipped more squals with the flashes of lightning, which, he discovered, came from her rope dart. It attacked the squals like a snake injecting its venom into its prey and dragged a tail of light behind as it darted and recoiled.

On his way to his guardian angel, Cross ducked slashing squals. The Raven tossed him the obsidian blade. He caught it and slashed any squal in his path. When he finally reached her, she lifted him onto his cornurus and they rode out of Metnal leaving their pursuers behind chasing on foot, no match for Gimlet’s gallop.

Back at the talking crossroads they took the east road toward paradise. Miles down the sharp red stoned path, a red river blocked their way. It flowed with blood. Gimlet refused to cross it. Cross stroked her horn and she paddled them through the knee-high blood to the other side.

They cleaned the blood off their clothes as much as they could without water, and they set up camp. His distrust of the Raven never wavered, but there was a time to fight and a time to sit back and see what happened. He didn’t have a weapon as deadly as the Raven’s rope dart so he’d lose any kind of dust up. Besides, she could have burned him at any time, but she hadn’t so far, which meant she needed him for another con perhaps.

She snatched a barbot out of the sky with her rope dart, and they ate together. He kept his guard up and watched her every move, while only acting as if he’d made a new friend in her.

“How’d you domesticate a cornurus?” she asked.

“I can tame any beast,” he said. “First, you have to let them know who’s boss. You’re in control. Once they respect you, they let their guard down. Then you have to connect with them. Show them you understand them.” He rubbed Gimlet on the nose. “Give back the respect they gave you. And sometimes it’s just as simple as feeding them.” He held the barbot meat up to Gimlet’s wide mouth and she fed. “They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Same for beasts.”

Gimlet chomped on his hand and almost took a chunk out of it. He bopped her with the bottom of his fist. He knew her bite was an accident. She’d never purposely hurt him, but anger got the best of him. “Never bite the hand that feeds you! Here me, Gimlet?”

“Gimlet?” asked the Ravens.

“It’s what I named her,” said Cross, calming himself. “The Roaring Gimlet.”

The Raven reached into her sack and pulled out a bushel of calabash. She snapped one of the green, bottle-shaped fruits off the bushel and tossed it over to him. He caught it and stared at the calabash.

“Where’d you get this?” he asked.

“Fresh fruit in a very rare thing,” she said, flatly. “You’re welcome.”

No matter what words came out of the Raven’s mouth, her face remained totally expressionless. It was as if she had complete control over her emotions or was cursed with a permanent indifferent attitude towards everything. She obviously had her own goals, but she never smiled or frowned. She didn’t even show any anger towards him when he cursed her out back in Metnal.

Not only did that quality make her the perfect swindler, it also made it difficult for Cross to determine whether or not she knew that the calabash was poison. But if he could get her to drink from the fruit, he could take all the objects they had gained from the squals.

“You take one,” he said. “It’s no fun drinking alone. Let’s you and me have a drink.” He raised his fruit in the air.

She slid the rest of the calabash back into her sack. “I’m not thirsty.”

“There’s no such thing as not being thirsty. Your lips are as dry as mine. You think you’re too good to drink with me or something?”

“You have a tendency to let little things get you all riled up. Try being thankful for what little you have and enjoy that.”

She might’ve been trying to accomplish the same thing as him. She was seemingly trying to get him to drink the juice first.

He rolled the fruit back over to her. “Skullface told you which way I was going didn’t he? That’s how you found me.”

“He said you could use a friend,” she said, with a shrug.

“He talks too damn much.”

“You two have that in common. That’s the only reason I can think of why he would take such a liking to you.” She grabbed his calabash from the ground. “Then again, he did insist on poisoning you. He made me promise to give you one of these calabashes before he told me which way you went.” She tossed the fruit back into her burlap sack with the other items. “If I were you, I’d watch who you make friends with.”

After a brief rest, they continued east for a few more miles and came to yet another river. This one flowed with live scorpions, millions of them, all clamoring over each other, stinging and fighting. This time Gimlet plowed in with no hesitation and swallowed scorpions as though it were a feast thrown in her honor.

The Raven grabbed Cross by the arms and flew him to the other side of the river before the scorpions could attack them. They brushed and plucked dangling scorpions off their clothes. Gimlet refused to climb out of the river when Cross called her out.

“You eat too much,” he said, “you’ll get a tummy ache. Here, I’ll bring some along for the ride.” Cross bagged a few of the scorpions in a pouch and promised to feed them to her later. Gimlet grunted in agreement and finally climbed out of the river.

It took about four periods of sleep for them to arrive in Viņsaule. Four black orbs hovered over the canyons like dead moons. He and the Raven took shelter from an acid rain storm in a shallow cave and built a fire. Cross fed Gimlet the leftover scorpions as promised. The cornurus picked over the few dead ones and devoured the live ones.

The Raven opened her burlap sack full of objects of the dead, reached in and pulled out a spoon. She swirled it around in the air and tapped it on a rock. Then, she handed it to Cross. “One for you,” she said. Next she pulled out a mirror. She stared into it and then her gaze wandered behind Cross. “This one’s for me,” she said.

Cross turned around and saw only the dark tunnel leading into the heart of the cave. No matter what the mirror’s ability was, he didn’t want it anyway. Mirrors were evil. Not only did they show him who he truly was in death, but in life, beings from other worlds often spoke to him through the glass. They always harassed him with messages of terror. He tried his best to avoid all reflective surfaces.

The Raven drew a comb from the sack and combed her silky black hair with it. Her hair color changed to white.

“Nice look, Blondie,” said Cross.

She grabbed a handful of her hair and held it in front of her face, and then combed her hair again. It changed back from day to night. She tossed the comb to Cross. “Two for you,” she said.

The weird abilities contained within the underworld’s objects never ceased to fascinate Cross, but a comb that turned black hair to white was not something he thought would ever be useful. He thumbed his spoon, wondering what powers it contained, but if it were valuable, he wanted to keep it a secret from the Raven. She might steal it from him.

She lifted two more objects from the sack; a cigar lighter and a blanket. She spread the blanket down on the rocky cave floor and invited him to sit with her. His bottom hadn’t touched anything soft in years. He almost smiled at her courtesy of allowing him to share it. He gladly sat with her.

She struck the lighter and flaming salamanders crawled out of it. One scorched her hand. She dropped the lighter. The fiery salamanders blew away as though they were fragile candle light and evaporated into puffs of smoke, slithering up to salamander heaven.

The Raven searched for the lighter, which should have been on the blanket where she dropped it, but it had disappeared as if the blanket had swallowed it. She patted the surface of the blanket searching in vain. “Well, that’s two and three for me,” she said.

Object six was a beaded necklace with a brass cross hanging from it. The Latin cross had no corpus and was plain except for an ominous glow about it. The longer she held it, the brighter its halo bloomed. It lit up their area of the cave like a lantern and soon overpowered the camp fire. The Raven shivered as if disgusted by the sight of it and slung the necklace over to Cross. It dimmed in his hands.

“Three for you,” she said and emptied the sack of the last three objects. A compass, an amphora, and a flask rolled onto the cave floor. The Raven seemed to take care that none of the objects fall onto the blanket where they would vanish.

She peeked into the opening of the flask and turned it upside down. No liquid poured out. It seemed to be empty, but even he could smell the bourbon from where he was sitting across from her. She raised the mouth of the flask to her nose and drew a cautious sip. She swirled something around in her mouth and twisted the cap back on.

She held out the compass next. The pointer spun wildly as though it didn’t know which way was north. The spoon shot out of Cross’s hand. It smacked into the Raven’s chest, and on impact a green aura sparked over her body. It vanished as quickly as it flashed. If he had blinked he would have missed it. The spoon clung to her breast like it was glued there.

“That’s mine.” Cross reached for his spoon and unintentionally ended up with a palm full of her goods. He only left his hand on her chest so long because it felt so nice. He hadn’t been with a woman in forever and had almost forgotten the warmth and ecstasy of their delicate bodies. Even a hard woman like the Raven was soft to the touch.

A thin strip of coldness slid under his chin breaking him from his enchantment. The Raven was holding his obsidian blade at his neck.

He released his grip on her chest and held his palms up. “I didn’t mean – I was just—”

She pressed the blade up under his chin, forcing his head upwards. She twirled the blade away from him and dropped it back to its original position on his back holster. When she tossed the compass back into her sack, the spoon lost its mysterious connection to her chest and fell to her lap. She pitched the spoon into a dark corner of the cave. “Fetch,” she said.