Butcher Bird

"But an Angel party isn't a regular kind of party. There's a lot of guys on massive doses of acid, playing William Tell with fifty caliber handguns. There's knives flying by and gangbangs and more beer than in all of Milwaukee. And here's my little artsy-fartsy weekly newsrag lit major buddy trying to be Cool Hand Luke with it all. The thing he said, though, and I believe this, was that after a while he really was cool with the savage craziness. The party went on all night and into the next day, and the way he put it, 'You can only be terrified for so long.'"

"I guess you're still looking for your happy place on this trip," said Lulu.

"Working on it. I figure Hell can't be any worse than Houston."

"Are we close to the bottom, Lulu?" asked Shrike.

"Damned if I know. It just keeps going down."

"It's getting hot," said Shrike.

"Yeah, but it's a dry heat," said Spyder. No one laughed.

"Why can't the Prince of Darkness have an elevator? Ozzy would," Lulu said.

"Don't disrespect the demons in their own house, dear."

"Yes, daddy."

"Maybe this should be a quiet time, while we try to get our bearings," said Shrike.

Spyder stumbled again, cursed. He leaned over the railing and felt a warm wind rising from somewhere below. It still smelled of roses, but there was an undercurrent of something musky and subterranean, darkly fungal. Spyder had to admit that he was a little surprised and kind of annoyed with himself. After all the reading and study he'd done concerning the underworld, now that he was actually here, he kind of wanted the place to be a furnace full of guys in red suits, pointy beards and pitchforks. Those childhood images and fears never go away and never really get updated, he thought. You can add on new ones, but you never completely bury the old nightmares.

"How many angels are there?" asked Lulu.

"Depends on who you ask. Some claim a hundred and forty-four thousand. Other guys a million, a hundred million, or even a billion, but those are probably just bad translations. Anyway, a third of Heaven went down with Lucifer when he got the door."

"You're saying, there's between a hundred forty thousand and a few million crackhead angels down there?"

"Give or take."

"How fucked are we?"

"It could be worse," said Shrike. "We're sneaking into to a mad place at a chaotic time. War is a perfect cover for crime."

"What's going to be down at the bottom of this staircase?" asked Lulu.

"I wish I knew," Spyder said. "Hell's pretty flexible. Different to different people at different times. It's got a geography, all these little fiefdoms controlled by Lucifer's lodge buddies. There's the big boy's palace in the biggest city, Pandemonium. Some prophets say Hell's just a big, pointless machine, that all the damned souls are cogs and gears and that the machine's only purpose is to grow with no purpose at all. Others say that life in Hell's just like life on earth, only more hopeless and boring. Some traditional types still go with the fire and brimstone story, and why not? Someone's got to have that old school stick up their ass." Spyder shrugged. "I've talked to Shrike about the demons and laws and traps I've read about, but, we're not going to know what's down there until we're on the ground."

Lulu laughed.

"What?" asked Spyder.

"I'm just rememberin' something. After I came out to my folks, all the times they told me this is where I'd end up. And here I am."

The air grew hotter and more fragile, brittle almost. Not like the desert. It felt artificial, as if someone had left on a giant dehumidifier and it was sucking the moisture from everything. The rising air from below was full of an itchy grit that settled on everyone's skin and instantly itched. Hell already sucked and we're barely through the door, Spyder thought.

Spyder felt Shrike's hand close around his. "When we get down there you stick close to me, pony boy."

"Why didn't you tell me that being blind was such a drag?"

"You get used to it.

"This probably wasn't the time to start."

"Damn. We're here. The bottom," said Lulu. "Be careful stepping down."

"Where do we go now?" Spyder asked.

"I was going to ask you, Mr. Wizard. What is this?"

"Describe it. I'm Stevie Wonder over here."

"Right. Sorry," she said. "Okay. We're in a big cavern at the bottom of the stairs. There's light, but hell if I can tell where it's coming from. In front, there's three really big doors. There's no signs or nothing, but all of the doors have the pug ugliest demon faces carved on them. Looks like we're marching down some monster's gullet, whatever we do. But which one do we open?"

"This wasn't in any of the books," Spyder said. "What do the demons look like?"

"Like demons. Big scary teeth and huge goddam claws."

"Do the demons have snouts? Like dogs or wolves?"

"Yeah. Kind of. What are they?"