The Brimstone Deception (22 page)

No one else.

And if all of us didn't step through that portal, the deal was off.

“I don't like it,” Ian said.

“We've just been invited to Hell by an evil wizard,” Fred said. “And if we don't slam a Hellpit, demons invade and everyone dies. You'll have to be more specific, buddy.”

My partner's face was set on perma-frown. “You, Mac, and Martin don't need to be anywhere near here when this goes down.”

“You go, I go,” Fred told him. “No arguments.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “None of us want to be here, but we're on the guest list. Without Kitty, we don't stand a chance in hell . . .” I stopped. “If we live through this, that phrase is gonna have a whole new meaning.”

“I have been to Hell,” Martin told us. “The rest of you have not—with the possible exception of Magus Danescu. I must go as a guide, if nothing else.”

Rake actually did roll his eyes. “The Hellpit isn't getting any smaller while you argue. Once the demons of Hell pass into this world, every living thing will become food—or worse. We can't help Miss Poertner, or close the Hellpit, if we don't get inside.”

Rake Danescu had become the voice of reason. We didn't need Kitty to close the Hellpit. Hell itself had just frozen over.

“There were two more lines I couldn't read before it burned up,” I said to Rake. “What did they say?”

“Isidor claims he cannot—or more likely, will not—guarantee our safety once we're inside. He claims to have limited influence over his hosts.”

“He didn't say anything about weapons,” Ian noted with grim satisfaction.

“It is likely that weapons from our dimension will not work there,” Martin told us. “Particularly automatic weapons.”

I couldn't believe my ears. “You've got to be kidding.”

“The closer we get to the Hellpit—and therefore to Hell itself—the less effective the technology from our world will be.” Martin almost looked embarrassed. “I discovered this through unpleasant personal experience during one of my excursions.”

“What about your camera?”

The demonologist actually smiled. “Older technology such as this will not be affected.”

“Since the Hellpit was opened by Isidor,” Rake said, “and presumably that portal was his creation as well, the very air on the other side will be filled with the influence of his magic. Different rules will most definitely apply.”

Ian snorted. “Silvanus's rules.”

Rake shook his head. “Dark magic rules.” His eyes glittered in what I could swear was anticipation. “I know this game.”

“I don't know of any rules that would keep cold steel from doing its job,” Ian said. “You got knives?” he asked me.

“Many,” I assured him.

“Get more. Sandy?”

Sandra turned to her closest commandos and then started passing me blades in sheaths, and I put them anywhere they'd comfortably go.

“Got an extra revolver?” Ian asked the commander.

Sandra didn't say a word, just unclipped the old-fashioned six-shooter from her belt and passed it to him, along with a pouch of ammo.

Rake shook his head when Sandra offered him what I couldn't carry.

If dark magic would work, Rake should be armed for a demonic T-Rex. Hopefully we wouldn't have to find out.

“I'm fine, thank you,” Martin said when one of the commandos offered him a wicked curved knife with a jagged blade.

The demonologist was smiling in gleeful anticipation.

Marty was about to see his very first Hellpit.

THE
five of us stepped over the threshold of Bacchanalia's wine cellar and into a nightmare landscape, and we all got a good look at Isidor Silvanus's handiwork.

I had to give him credit for creativity. The other side of the portal looked like a tunnel in a prehistoric cavern complete with stalagmites and stalactites. Along one side of the rock-strewn floor was a stream of what must have been molten brimstone flowing away from us and around a curve in the cave wall. I couldn't see what was around the corner, but I could sure see the bright orange glow.

There was no way all this was on the other side of the wall from Rake's wine cellar. You couldn't fling a dead rat below street level in New York without hitting subway tunnels and/or water and sewer lines. There were a lot of things under the city streets, but a monstrous cavern complete with a brimstone creek shouldn't be one of them.

“This isn't right,” was what I managed to say. “This can't be here. It's too big.”

“It's a pocket dimension,” Rake said. The goblin turned back to where the portal opened, and his eyes shone with intent of murder most violent. “And Isidor anchored it into the rock surrounding my cellar.”

I looked around. “Jeez, how much room is on the other side of your wine cellar anyway?”

“It couldn't be this much,” Fred said.

“It's not,” Martin told us. “The size of the actual area outside of Bacchanalia's basement has no bearing on the size of a pocket dimension. In theory, it could be as small—or as large—as its creator wanted it to be.”

I stifled a whistle at the vault of the cavern ceiling far above our heads. “Then Silvanus must be compensating for something.”

“If it's a pocket dimension, then how does what's in here get out into the city when the Hellpit is fully open?” Ian asked.

“Isidor's magic made it,” Rake told him. “Isidor's magic can unmake it. Once that Hellpit is completely open, he'll pop this pocket dimension like an overfilled water balloon.”

“Sounds messy,” Fred noted.

“If by messy you mean a cavern suddenly breaking through into our reality beneath the streets of this city, molten brimstone flowing through the sewers and subway tunnels, and demons hunting the streets—then yes, it will be extremely messy.”

A swiftly flowing river of bubbling, molten brimstone ran beside a rock ledge barely wide enough for two of us to walk side by side. The altering landscape must have been a distortion of the pocket dimension—or the landscape was shifting and changing as the Hellpit somewhere farther in the cavern continued to grow. Color was apparently distorted as well. When we'd first stepped through the portal, the rocks had looked, well, rock colored. In reality they were sulfuric yellow.

And I'd always thought the Yellow Brick Road led to Oz.

That'd make Isidor the Wicked Witch of the West, Kitty would be Dorothy, and the contract Rake carried was the Ruby
Slippers. Rake wouldn't qualify as Glinda the Good on his best day, more like the Wizard of Oz. At the end of the movie, Oz had floated away in a balloon, leaving Dorothy and company to fend for themselves.

My subconscious kept replaying
that
part for me as a portent of impending doom.

Ours.

I'd only heard about Rake's power. Other than the fire door, I'd never witnessed anything big myself, and until now I'd never minded. One person I'd heard it from had been Vivienne Sagadraco. If the boss said Rake was powerful, I'd believe her without proof. However, she'd also said that he was dangerous. I'd always assumed she meant dangerous to anyone he went up against. Now was not a good time to have my assumption disproven.

I pushed those thoughts out of my head, making myself focus on what was likely to get me killed now rather than later. When in enemy territory, a little noise to cover any sounds you might make was a good thing. Usually. The sounds we were hearing wouldn't be called good in anyone's estimation. A sharp snap and crack was repeating at irregular intervals, as if something that wasn't supposed to be breakable was being broken. Like I said, not good.

We walked and walked, but didn't seem to be getting any closer to the turn in the path and the Hellpit presumably beyond.

Isidor Silvanus was playing with us.

“Does this qualify as the dark magic games you were referring to?” Ian asked.

“It would,” Rake replied. “Isidor is attempting to control time here. He's trying to delay our arrival.”

Fred wiped sweat from his face. “Seems to be doing a damn fine job.”

There was a grouping of sharp rocks not too far down the path. “Those rocks haven't gotten any closer,” I pointed out. “It's like we're walking on a freakin' treadmill.”

Rake nodded once. “Exactly.”

“Anything you can do about this?” Ian asked Rake.

“There is. The question then becomes are you ready for a fight?”

“Yes.”

“How much of a fight?” Fred asked.

A wise man, Fred.

“I know what you're capable of,” Fred told Ian. “No offense, Mac. You're feisty, but we
are
approaching Hell.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Nothing personal.” The half-elf cop jerked his thumb at Martin. “Then we've got the Professor back there doing a
National Geographic
photo shoot.”

The demonologist was squatting down on the very edge of the ledge, clicking off shots of a fat, pale worm-like demon that was using six caterpillar-like legs to pull itself up against the ledge like it was the edge of a swimming pool, and was curiously studying Martin with a pair of round, black eyes.

Martin must have sensed us all watching him in complete disbelief. He stopped clicking.

“Don't let me keep you. I'm fine. Merely taking advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

“Isidor is attempting to delay us by controlling time here,” Rake told him, “so I'm going to teleport the five of us closer to the Hellpit. I need you to move closer.”

Martin glanced down with concern at the chubby foot-long worm. “Manipulating time can adversely affect these larvae's development. Since it's occurring, the parent must not be aware of it. Isidor Silvanus may be able to slow the passage of time, but he's still a guest here, so he really shouldn't. Would you like him to stop?”

The goblin raised one perfect eyebrow. “That was my desired solution.”

“I think I can help with that.”

“If so, your assistance would be much appreciated.”

I didn't say a word. I couldn't. There were way too many WTFs in that exchange for me to process. Fred and Ian were
likewise afflicted. This was approaching a
Twilight Zone
level of strange.

Martin reached out with his index finger and touched the larva right on top of its squishy little head. Neither moved for at least ten seconds, then Martin stood and came over to where we waited.

“The larva will relay our predicament and request to its parent.” The demonologist looked back to where the worm/larva had disappeared back into the molten brimstone with a plop. “It shouldn't take long. This particular demon at this early stage of development is still telepathically linked to the parents.”

“How can you be sure he . . . it will relay the message?” Ian asked.

Martin shrugged. “Demon larva like me. I guess you can say I'm good with children.”

I had no response for that, either.

“Thank you, Dr. DiMatteo,” Rake said. “Let's continue and pick up the pace. When Isidor realizes his efforts have been thwarted, he'll attack us in another way.”

We walked faster, and after a few minutes, we began making progress.

“Let's hear it for Marty's tattle-worm,” Fred muttered.

Rake and Ian had slowed, their full attention on a patch of shadow ahead of us, that, judging from Ian's hand hovering above Sandra's six-shooter, wasn't simply another harmless spot of dark.

The shadow moved and—

Wait. It
moved
?

What looked to be just another shadow started moving all by its lonesome and spread to cover the hallway from side to side. If we wanted to get past it—and we had to—we needed to go through it.

Nope.

I didn't even have to consult my lizard brain on that one. My entire brain was in agreement—no way was I stepping into that.

Fred took one step back, sharing my misgivings.

Naturally, Ian didn't budge. My partner was the poster boy for determination.

The corner of the cavern wall was visible through the apparently sentient shadow.

Rake picked up a chunk of brimstone rock and threw it through the shadow.

The rock vanished.

It went in, but it didn't come out the other side.

Nope. Definitely nope.

“Alternate route?” I asked.

No sooner were the words out of my mouth than the shadow began flowing down a narrow path, away from us, in the direction we needed to go.

Toward the Hellpit.

Fred let out the breath we'd all been holding. “And that, boys and girl, is our engraved invitation.”

*   *   *

We'd all seen the glow of the Hellpit the entire way here. But even the glow and the overwhelming stench couldn't prepare us for what lay around that last turn.

We were hit with a wall of heat and sulfuric fumes coming off a Hellpit the size of my granddaddy's catfish pond that was bubbling with molten brimstone—and all of it irrationally located just outside of Bacchanalia's wine cellar.

“Isn't a pit more like a hole in the ground?” Fred asked.

“That's what I've always thought,” I said.

“Then that's a big damn pit.”

Even more disturbing was finding the source of the snapping and cracking we'd been hearing. It was the rock floor breaking and giving way under the pit's relentless expansion.

The floor trembled beneath our feet as another few inches of the cavern floor crumbled and fell into the lagoon.

There were bones lying around the shoreline. Humanoid. Meaning human, elf, goblin, or vampire. With the exception
of fangs on the vampires and goblins, the only way to know for sure would be to get them in a lab.

Death was the great equalizer.

“I think we found the missing drug dealers,” Ian murmured.

I had an unwanted flashback to the chicken bones in my bathtub. This was what the aftermath of baby demon mealtime looked like when they got hold of something big. I focused on the closest skeleton. That could have been me, except my remains would've been in my apartment and not on the shore of a Hellpit, but that was small comfort.

Contrary to how most humans envisioned it, the entrance to Hell wasn't in the bowels of our Earth. It was on another plane of existence. It could just as easily have opened like a door behind us, but in my opinion, nothing was a more appropriate entrance to Hell than a stinking, molten, sulfuric pit.

When we got out of here—
if
we got out of here—the clothes I was wearing were history. No amount of washing would get the rotten egg stink out.

SPI offered hazard pay to its agents. I'd been told in HSR (Human and Supernatural Resources) on my first day that since all of our work was considered dangerous, rarely did a situation arise that qualified for hazard pay. Even hunting two adult grendels and their dozens of spawn in the pitch-dark tunnels underneath Times Square didn't qualify.

Still, I had to ask.

“Does storming what's basically the gates of Hell qualify for hazard pay?”

Ian nodded. “Yeah, it does.”

Oh goody.

Now we just had to live long enough to collect.