Escape From Hell (31 page)

“It wasn’t my fault!” Oscar howled. “I was carjacked! They drove me across the desert, then pushed me over the big cliff!”

“Your doing, Allen?” Rosemary asked politely.

“Yes. Well, Benito and me. We wanted transportation.”

“It was the spaceman who pushed me off the cliff,” Oscar said. “I landed on my back. Carpenter here put me on my feet again. Ma’am.”

“And in turn you agreed to serve Allen Carpenter,” Rosemary said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“A good decision. Very well. I see no reason why you should not go back to your former duties.”

The man in rags coughed discreetly.

“Yes, Roger?”

“We have a request for his transfer, ma’am. Black Talon wants him. Promised him new equipment.”

“Black Talon himself?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Rosemary looked thoughtful. “It would be helpful to have such a senior officer in our debt,” Rosemary said. “Oscar, you seem to have impressed Black Talon. Have you any objection to serving him?”

“Rather be in my old place,” Oscar said. “If it’s all the same to you, ma’am.”

Clearly it was not all the same to Rosemary, but she merely nodded. “We can discuss this another time. Allen, have you reconsidered my offer? I can use an intelligent assistant.”

Carl said, “Sounds good to me!”

Rosemary regarded him coldly. “Why should I regard you as intelligent?” she asked.

He grinned. “I wrote a book!”

A lizard’s head appeared from under the car. Belly up, the lizard wriggled out into the open and turned over. It crouched, looking from one to another of us.

Rosemary saw it and frowned. Several devils saw it, and did nothing. Sylvia and Carl began to back away.

It was just small enough to fit under Oscar: a small Komodo dragon, but with six limbs. It gathered its strength, then charged, running right past Rosemary and her entourage, straight at us. Carl screamed, “Don’t let it get me!”

I reached behind me, snatched up a fistful of Carl’s academic robe, and hurled him at the lizard.

Sylvia whispered, “Allen!”

The lizard wrapped itself around Carl. Carl howled.

We watched them change. A stupefied man became a lizard, a lizard became a man in a tattered academic robe. The man thrashed, rolled onto all fours, and backed away from the lizard. “It’s me! It’s me!” he shouted. “Allen! Sylvia!” He sure looked like Carl.

Oscar said, “I’ll be damned. Identity theft.”

I said, “Give me a countable infinity.”

“Rational numbers. I can show you. And real numbers are uncountable, a higher infinity. It’s me, Allen. Oscar, when you stopped for that obscene lizard I slid under the car. I was afraid you’d feel me hanging on.”

One of the devils picked up the lizard in two hands. He hurled it to another devil, who was about to swing his mallet when Rosemary said, “Hold on to that one. He might be interesting.”

The demon bowed slightly and passed the lizard to another to hold. Rosemary barked at the double line of applicants. “Will one of you do me a service?”

Four stepped forward. Rosemary said, “I need you to let that lizard bite you.”

They stared. Then two stepped back in line, and a robed man stepped toward the demon who held the lizard.

We watched the change.

The man who emerged from the lizard’s shape looked like a balding Kewpie doll. The demon was still holding him, and he wriggled. Rosemary asked, “Who are you?”

The man said, “Kenneth Lay. I ran a business. Miss, are you hiring?”

“Roger?”

“Mr. Lay is too modest. He stole billions.”

“I was never convicted. Miss, I’m good at organizing. You need me.”

“I don’t think you represent what we want in a recruiter, Mr. Lay. Hambelis, let the lizard bite him.”

Lay wriggled free and ran. The demon’s reach was amazingly long — a sight I’d remember — and Lay was thrashing as the lizard wrapped around him.

“And how did you know, Allen?” Rosemary asked me.

“I’ve suspected since we picked him up,” I said. “He didn’t react the way the real Carl would have. Carl, prove to Madam Bennett that you’re intelligent.”

“Here? All the rules are whimsical. All right, ma’am, do you know how to make a Möbius strip? I’d need paper, scissors, and glue. Or I can talk about quantum physics and how much we really don’t know because our theories aren’t unified.”

Rosemary chuckled. “Indeed.” She looked back at me. “Allen, do you believe in coincidences?”

“I used to, but no. Not here.”

“Nor do I. Allen, we meet again. Improbably. Please reconsider my offer.”

“Given a long enough time, nothing is improbable,” Carl said. “Coincidence is just a time trick.”

Rosemary started to frown, then smiled. “I remember you, Carl. You were very persuasive. You could be of great use in recruiting intelligent staff among the Virtuous Pagans. Are you committed to following Allen to the end?”

Carl shook his head. “Madam, I have made no commitment to anyone. Other than the usual implied obligations of gratitude. Allen and Aimee did rescue me from the Third Bolgia, and I am grateful.”

A frown crossed Rosemary’s face. “Aimee has been somewhat of a problem,” she said. She smiled again. “As to gratitude, such bonds have no legal force, and in any event I am certain Allen will release you from any obligations to him. Won’t you, Allen?”

Her voice and smile were pleasant, but there was an edge to the question. When I hesitated, Rosemary said, “It would be impolite of me to remind you that your companions do not have your status, Allen. They have been judged.”

The two guard demons had been scowling. Now they grinned.

“You want Carl and Oscar,” I said. “I keep Sylvia and Eloise.”

“Be civil to Madam Bennett,” Roger said.

Rosemary smiled. “Thank you, Roger, but in future please do not rebuke my friends unless you are asked.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Very well, Allen. If you insist. But are you certain you will not consider keeping your team together? I can make a place for you all.”

I shook my head.

“Allen, what is it you want?”

“What we both wanted when we left the Vestibule.”

“I embody justice, Allen,” Rosemary said. “There is justice here, and you have seen that. Clearly you want something more. Heaven, perhaps?”

I realized I had never really thought that far ahead. I told her that.

“But you are in Heaven, are you not?” she asked. “Allen, I have read your books, and those of some of your contemporaries. Allen, look where you are!”

“You cannot die. You don’t get old. You heal from all misadventures. And what you do is important and has meaning! You are needed! Allen, what more could you want, from life or from death?”

I said, “Oh.” It felt like a blow to the head. She was describing the idealized future from stories I’d read as a kid, the stories I’d imitated. Flawed utopia. “Rosemary, are you really trying to turn Hell into Heaven? Why not start by taking out the torture?”

“Allen, you have said the purpose of Hell is both punishment and training ground. How can it be either without what you call torture? But I didn’t design this place.”

“Neither did I.”

“No, but we are being allowed to change it,” Rosemary said. “You can be part of that if you like. But we must be careful. We are allowed to make mistakes. Allen, you want Hell to be a training ground. Assume that it is. Without some form of shock treatment, how will we get the sinner’s attention? And you demand justice. Surely there are crimes in life that deserve punishment? They were warned, after all. It is not our fault that they did not believe the warnings.”

When I didn’t say anything, Rosemary smiled faintly. “I suggest you think about such things. I see that Carl has. Will you work with me, Carl?”

Carl bowed. “Is there a length to this service?”

“I remind you, Carl. You have already been judged. I offer you an alternative to being returned to the circle you came from.”

“What happens if he wants to come with me?” I asked.

Rosemary’s smile tightened. “Do you both want to test that?” she asked. “Think on it. I want justice no less than you.” She pointed to the demons. “And they want justice. Indeed, they insist on justice, and theirs is not tempered with mercy. Or with the need for willing employees and colleagues. Their task is to enforce the torments one earned in life! That is their justice.”

Eloise shuddered. “You are one scary lady,” she said.

“If I stay with you, Allen and Eloise and Sylvia go free,” Carl said. “That is agreed?”

“Yes.”

“And if I prove unsatisfactory?” Carl asked.

Rosemary gave her thin smile. “You will be no worse off than you are now.”

I wanted to say something, to beg Carl to come with us, but Rosemary’s smile was terrifying. She might be bluffing. She might not be. One thing was certain. She could simply go off with her escorts and leave us stranded here.

Carl had thought of that. “How will Allen and his friends get out of this pit?”

“I’ll take them,” Oscar said. “Ma’am? I mean fair’s fair, I got them into here, it’s up to me to get them out. I’ll take them, and then you tell me where to meet you.”

“My. I seem to be making job offers to loyalists,” Rosemary said. “Very well. Carl?”

“Okay,” Carl said. “I’ll work for you.”

“Thank you. Oscar, I suggest you take them back the way you came. Wait for me on the uphill rim of this Bolgia. I won’t be long. Roger, go with them.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Roger said. He came over to sit on the hood.

“Allen, I think we will meet again,” Rosemary said. “My offer remains open.”

And my accounts still balance, I thought, but I didn’t say it. She got Carl and Oscar. I got Eloise and Sylvia, and I hadn’t got either one of them out of here yet. For that matter, I wasn’t out myself. I did seem to have some special status, but it wasn’t clear what that was. Black Talon wanted me to swim in his pitch. Rosemary was willing to bargain.

I got back into the driver’s seat. After a moment, Sylvia got in and Eloise climbed into her lap.

Rosemary spoke briefly to her demon guards. They roared with laughter.

“Make way!” Jezebeth shouted. The demon circle opened. Jezebeth took the mallet from one who stepped inward, and ran ahead of us. The mallet swung back and forth scattering lizards and snakes in both directions. Jezebeth’s laugh echoed across the Seventh Bolgia.

I looked back to see Sybacca following us with another mallet.

Chapter 29

Eighth Circle, Eighth Bolgia

Evil Counselors

Part One

Escape

Now, thickly clustered, as the peasant at rest
On some hill–side, when he whose rays illume
The world conceals his burning countenance least,
What time the flies go and the mosquitoes come.
Looks down the vale and sees the fire–flies sprinkling
Fields where he tills or brings the vintage home —
So thick and bright I say the eighth most twinkling
With wandering fires, soon as the arching road
Laid bare the bottom of the deep rock–wrinkling.
Such as the chariot of Elijah showed
When he the bears avenged beheld it rise,
And straight to Heaven the rearing steeds upstrode.

T
he demons preceded us up the ramp we’d come down. Oscar followed, not too close. Transformed thieves took cover in cracks and burrows. Devils got the slowest, sent them flying, laughing when a hissing python passed close above our heads.

At the top Sylvia and Eloise got out of the car. I hesitated. I wanted my pickaxe and rope, but I wasn’t sure what Jezebeth and Sybacca would do when they saw me carrying tools. And Roger would fink on us for certain.

“Been good knowing you, Allen,” Oscar said. “Well, this time, anyway. Not so much fun the first time we met.”

“I guess that made me a car thief,” I said.

“Say it softly here,” Oscar said.

Grab the tools and run for the footbridge? But I didn’t want to fight demons. Clearly these two weren’t confined to any Bolgia, the way Black Talon and his troops were. I waited another awkward moment and got out.

Sylvia looked at me, then at the car. I looked at the demons and shrugged. She nodded and took my arm. “Time to go. Thanks, Oscar. Good to have met you.”

“You, too, Sylvia.”

We walked toward the footbridge. We hadn’t quite reached it when Oscar rolled up alongside us. “You forgot something,” he said.

The demons were fifty feet away. Roger was standing with them.

“Don’t worry about them,” Oscar said. “They’re just making sure I don’t make a run for it.”

“Just how stupid can they get?” Eloise asked.

“Not stupid,” Oscar said.

“More like single–minded,” Sylvia said. “They focus hard on what they’re concerned with, and they don’t get distracted.”

Oscar turned so that the passenger door was on his other side from the demons. Sylvia opened it and took out the pickaxe and rope. “If you like your work herding sinners, why are you helping us?” she asked.

Oscar gave a tinny laugh from the radio speaker. “Didn’t have any orders not to, and you’ve been square with me. One thing, once I have orders it might be different.”

Sylvia patted his fender. “Okay, Oscar, we’re warned. Thanks. You’re sweet.”

Cars can’t blush, but I think he wanted to.

Sylvia used the pick as a walking stick as she went up the narrow footbridge. I waved goodbye to Oscar and followed.

It was a long walk. The arch wasn’t following classical physics. Pre–stressed steel would have sagged or broken, but this was boulders fitted together without visible cement. Down below reptiles chased humans in an eternal dance, but we didn’t stop to watch. As we descended toward the foot I said, “Be careful here.”

“What are we watching for?” Eloise asked.

“A lizard had got loose, last time I was here. He bit me.”

The base was clear. We turned clockwise, as had become our habit, and made for the next arch. On our right was a humming sound and a flicker of light. Eloise edged closer, to see down.

And on our left, too far to be dangerous, was a block of stone taller than my head.

From the top a rattlesnake lashed out. From the rattlesnake’s head, a salamander leaped. Great Zot, the thieves had invented the two–stage rocket! It fell straight at my eyes.