Misfit (24 page)

“Coming, coming . . . ,” mutters Dagon.

The stuff on the platters doesn’t look much like bread.

Most of it is greasy and ridged with bits of sharp bone. It seems to move sluggishly across the platters.

Dagon hurries over to the table, but when he gets close, Baal sticks out an iron hoof and trips him. The platters of strange bread go flying. Some pieces make it to the table, others crash to the floor. Dagon fal s on his face and Baal steps on his back.

Al of the creatures laugh and cheer “Crush him, Baal!

Crush him!” as Dagon struggles to get free of the massive creature. At last Baal releases him and turns his attention to the meal. The rest join him, climbing onto the table or scrambling under it as they fight over the slippery chunks of spil ed bread. Dagon gets slowly to his feet, clutching his back as he makes his way back through the doorway and into the kitchen.

“There, you see?” whispers Belial into Jael’s ear, his razor lips glinting in the ruddy light. “Your uncle knows his place in Hel .”

Amon lifts his muzzle up from the pile of food in front of him. “Belial?” he barks.

The others look up as wel .

“What do you have there?” asks Amon.

“It’s none of your concern,” says Belial.

As soon as Belial’s focus is turned toward Amon, Jael makes a dash for the smal service door her uncle used. Her cold limbs scream at her, but she grits her teeth and keeps running.

“What is that?” screeches the peacock man.

“Meat!” howls Amon.

She hears flapping, creaking, slithering, and scratching as the group of demons fol ows after her.

“Stop!” she hears Belial say. “She’s mine!”

“But, Your Grace,” whines Amon, “isn’t that—”

There’s a brittle snapping sound, like dry twigs, and a sad, doglike whimper.

“Anyone else?” asks Belial.

Jael slams clumsily into the door, wrenches it open, and hauls herself through. She jerks it closed behind her, looking for a lock or something to keep it shut.

There’s nothing.

She assumed the doorway led straight to Dagon’s kitchen, but instead she’s in a narrow hal way lit by a foul-smel ing phosphorescent fungus that clings to the ceiling in shapes like handprints.

“My dear.” She hears Belial’s voice behind the door.

“Where in Hel do you think you’re going?”

She hears a chorus of cackling laughter as she lunges away from the door and canters down the hal way as fast as her wobbly legs wil let her. She tries not to notice that the glowing fungus is creeping down the wal s toward her.

She reaches a T-shaped intersection where she can go left or right. Both al eys look exactly the same.

The fungus is on her level on the wal s, now. Thin tendrils reach tentatively out to her.

Far behind her, the door to the banquet hal slowly creaks open.

“Oh, Jael, dear . . . ,” cal s Belial.

Jael takes the passageway on the right.

The farther she goes, the less fungus there is, and the darker it gets. Soon she has to keep her hands out in front of her because she’s afraid of running into a dead end. After a short while in the darkness, she has no idea if she’s missed other passageways or if she’s even in a hal way anymore. Her footsteps sound different, no longer a tight echo. She reaches out a hand but doesn’t feel wal s in any direction. She is completely exposed, utterly lost, and stumbling through impenetrable darkness. Panic starts to take hold, and her breath comes in short, ragged gasps.

She feels dizzy and lightheaded, so she hunches over with her head between her knees.

As her breath slows down, she hears a steady, quiet rumble off to the right. It sounds like rushing water.

Maybe it’s where her uncle lives. She heads toward the sound, stil keeping her hands out so she won’t run into a wal . After a few minutes of fast walking, she trips and fal s forward onto the bottom of a stone staircase, slamming her palm into the edge of one of the steps. The pain of impact shoots through her body and she curls up on the gritty steps, clutching her hand until it passes. Then she gets back on her feet and climbs.

As she ascends, the sound of rushing water grows louder.

A dim, ruddy glow comes from somewhere at the top of the stairs. At the top, the stairs taper off as they lead to a narrow outcropping, where the path simply ends. She peers over the edge and sees a canyon twenty feet deep. A river flows through the center of the canyon, but it isn’t water. It’s lava.

“Ah, there you are.” Belial’s voice echoes from the darkness at the bottom of the steps. She whirls to face him, but the only thing she can see are two luminous blue eyes getting slowly closer. “I thought you might run for the kitchen. But perhaps you already knew your uncle wouldn’t be able to help you.”

Jael looks down at the seething river of lava, then back at the approaching eyes of Belial.

She jumps.

There’s a moment of weightless queasiness, then she hits.

The orange liquid is thicker than water, so she doesn’t sink down too far. After a few hard kicks, she breaks the surface.

She scans the edge of the canyon, but Belial isn’t fol owing.

Maybe it’s too hot for an ice demon. If that’s true, she might have stumbled onto the perfect escape. Now she just needs to figure out how she’s going to get out of Hel .

Al her clothes have burned off, of course, but she quickly shifts her skin to look like clothes. At a time like this, it seems like a very sil y, mortal thing to do, but it makes her feel better.

Then she begins to swim with the current, moving to the center of the river and downstream. After a while, the cliffs on either side slowly shrink down until the shores of the river are only slight hil s of black volcanic rock. It looks a little jagged, but Jael is getting tired of swimming, so she decides to head for shore.

But the lava is so thick, it feels like she’s swimming through oatmeal. After a few minutes, she’s only made it halfway to the riverbank. Then the current picks up. The surface gets choppy.

Quick slaps of bubbling orange splash her face. A little bit makes it into her mouth and the sudden searing pain leaves her gasping.

Then she sees a large fin, like a shark’s, jut out of the lava about twenty feet away. She stops swimming and tries to keep her head above the surface with as little movement as possible.

The fin veers off to the right and makes a slow, wide circle around her. It’s a glossy pitch-black, like obsidian, with jagged edges. For a moment, its head breaks the surface, and milky quartz eyes glare at her.

It cuts through the strong current and thick lava easily as it circles, getting closer with each revolution.

Al of her attention is on the fin, so it takes a while for her to look past the tightening circle to see the choppy current downriver. Then her ears pick up the deep roaring sound of a waterfal . Or would that be lavafal ?

She needs to solidify this lava. Then the shark thing would be trapped and she can just walk to the riverbank. She can’t believe she didn’t think of it earlier.

She pleads with the lava, extol ing every virtue of coolness and solidity that she can think of. But it mocks her. It heats itself up even more, then sloshes around and hurls itself into her mouth and eyes. She gives a yelp of pain. Clearly the elements of Hel aren’t interested in helping her out.

The obsidian shark is close enough that she can see rows of diamond teeth. Her skin may be tough, but she’s pretty sure it’s not that tough. She makes a break for the riverbank, her arms and legs flailing wildly. But the creature speeds up and launches itself into the air, then descends on her in a wal of diamond teeth.

There’s a roar and flash of fur, and the shark is knocked away. Jael struggles to turn herself in the rough current. The shark is wrestling with a three-headed demon. It’s Asmodeus.

The ram and bul heads slam furiously into the side of the obsidian creature while the man head turns toward her and nods solemnly.

Then she goes over the fal s.

When she hits, she shoots al the way to the river bottom.

For a moment, the lava pounds down on her from above and holds her pinned there. Her lungs scream for air and she thinks to herself, Is this it? Am I going to die now?

But then that image of her mother comes into her head again. Those piercing green eyes do not show weakness. They do not give up.

Jael forces herself up against the pressure of the lava and kicks off from the bottom as hard as she can. Her eyes are burning and she has to clench her teeth to keep from taking an involuntary gasp. Final y she breaks the surface and swims wearily to the riverbank. Despite the searing heat of the lava, the bank is covered in ice and snow. She climbs up onto a snowdrift, panting and coughing. The il usion of clothes does absolutely nothing to protect her skin from the snow and freezing winds.

But at least she can breathe.

“You know, my dear,” says Belial, looming over her with piercing eyes and an easy glittering smile, “it’s real y best to stay with the tour guide on your first trip to Hel .”

Jael pul s herself up onto her knees, looking for an escape.

From the lava riverbank, the snow-covered field stretches out past her line of vision, broken only by scattered outcroppings of jagged ice. The sky is a dul gray, and mottled black storm clouds scuttle quickly from horizon to horizon. She tries to get to her feet, but she stumbles in the deep snow and fal s over.

She feels Belial’s hard crystal hand close around the back of her head. Then he lifts her into the air.

“The Grand Duchy of the Northern Reaches,” he says, slowly rotating her around so she can get a good look.

“Isn’t it lovely? I do the landscaping myself, you know.

In fact, over there you can see one of my favorite spots.”

He gestures to a smal cluster of neatly pruned hedges huddled in the snow. It’s an odd burst of green in the otherwise colorless landscape.

“Does it look familiar?” asked Belial. “No? You were much too young to remember, I suppose.”

He takes hold of Jael’s upper arm and drags her over to the hedges.

“Al ow me to introduce you,” he says. “Jael Thompson, meet Astarte, your mother.”

Jael looks up at him, blinking stupidly.

Belial says, “Oh, they didn’t tel you that part, I suppose.

You see, Jael, souls cannot simply cease to exist.

Mortals die and their soul goes to wherever it is they go. But not demons.

Our souls are . . . stuck, if you wil . So when I ate your mother, she didn’t cease to exist. Nor did she flutter off to some afterlife.

She just changed shape and composition.”

“Composition . . . ,” Jael says, and looks back at the cluster of hedges.

“Yes, my dear,” he says pleasantly. “I digested her and shit her out here. Then I planted some hedges.

Demon manure makes excel ent plant fertilizer. These hedges have adapted to the climate remarkably.

Thanks to your mother. Or what’s left of her.”

Jael struggles against Belial’s cold grip and he lets go. She drops to the ground, then pushes her way through the snow, first at a stumble, then on hands and knees until she reaches the hedges. The leaves are a glossy dark green with sharp ridges.

“Mom?” she says.

“Oh, she can’t understand you, I’m sure,” says Belial.

“In fact, I’m fairly certain that she doesn’t real y have a consciousness anymore. After al , she’s spread out among twelve hedges. A bit hard to concentrate, I would imagine. I suppose she could eventual y get herself back together. But she’d have to evolve one step at a time. In a few thousand years, she might reach her original state, assuming she managed to hang on to enough memories to remember who she is.” He shrugs and strides over to Jael. “It wil be interesting, regardless.”

“This isn’t her,” says Jael. “You’re lying.”

“Your doubt is understandable,” he says. “Go ahead and touch her.”

Jael reaches out and puts her fingertips on one of the leaves.

A series of confused images floods through her mind, too blurry to make out. Then, for just a split second, she catches one clear image. It’s a baby, only a month or two old, in the arms of a man.

The baby has curly black hair and bright green eyes.

The man is in his thirties, with brown hair and fewer wrinkles, but there’s no doubt. It’s Jael’s father.

“Mother,” she whispers. Tears start to wel up, but she fights them off. They sting the corners of her eyes as they freeze.

“You may have noticed that I keep her immaculately pruned.” Belial reaches out and snaps a branch from one of the hedges. He holds the branch up and picks the leaves off, one at a time. “I’m not sure if this causes her pain, but I like to think so.”

The leaves drop to the snow around Jael and she stares at them numbly for a moment.

“I’l kil you,” she says quietly.

“Sure you wil , my dear,” says Belial, and he pats her on the head. “And with that, I’m afraid this concludes your tour of Hel . You’re not ready for the truly upsetting places in my humble home. But I hope you’ve gained a better understanding of how your little family fits into the big picture here. The bottom of the heap. You, my dear, are filth beneath even them.

And I am slowly, lovingly, scraping you away bit by bit.

You see, I am not some gourmand bent on a quick, gluttonous binge of brutality like Beelzebub, my dear brother to the south. No, I am a connoisseur of suffering who appreciates the anticipation nearly as much as the consummation. I wil take your friends and family and destroy them from the inside out. I wil bend you to my wil , force you to do truly terrible things. And then, final y, when you have run out of uses, I wil devour you. If you have proved entertaining enough, who knows. Perhaps I wil be kind enough to shit you out here with your mother so you can final y be together. Although I fear your halfbreed nature might befoul Hel even then.”

He laughs, a sound hard and shrieking, like a buzz saw on sheet metal. Then he lifts up one foot and shoves it down on her back, pressing her face into the snow. She struggles weakly as he continues to push down on her. She sinks deeper and deeper into the drift. It seems bottomless. Then she suddenly breaks through the other side and she’s lying on the sidewalk, back in Seattle.