Inferno. Part 14

"That's done it!" Frank yelled. "You're sure as h.e.l.l going over that cliff, all right, because I'm going to throw you!" He had Corbett by the neck, and he dragged him toward the cliff edge. "First you, then your loudmouth friend, then the fat one, and then--"

He'd forgotten Billy. We all had. It was a mistake for Frank. Billy launched himself from the car without warning. He landed on Frank's back and seized the long hair with one hand, pulled the head back, and wrapped his arm around Frank's neck. His knee gouged into the h.e.l.l's Angel's back, bowing him into an arc.

"Friend, I don't think I like you."

I yelled, "Billy! Are you all right?"

"Yeah."

"You weren't moving--"

"Been able to move awhile now. Didn't seem like a good idea to let this creep know it. Jerry coulda crashed this thing if we were fightin' while it was movin'."

I thought about the self-control it would take to sit still under a rain of sticky fire.

"What'll I do with the Gila monster, Benito?"

"Leggo! I was only kidding!" Frank yelled. "You guys got no business giving me false hopes! It was all your fault--" He stopped talking because Billy's arm had closed his throat.

"Do not harm him," Benito said quietly.

"Yeah?" Billy let him go. "Friend, you're not tough. You don't know what tough is. Now get away from us." The pale-blue eyes seemed infinitely deep, and cold even in this place of fire.

"You may come with us if you like," Benito told Frank, "although I do not think you are ready. With your att.i.tude you might well find a worse place than you have now. Still, you are welcome to join us."

"Go to h.e.l.l!" Frank screamed. He thought that was funny. "Go to h.e.l.l! Go to h.e.l.l!" He ran away into the desert, laughing, screaming, trying to keep both feet off the hot sand at once.

Benito looked at us, waiting.

"I'll jump if you say so," Billy said. "Looks bad, though. I can tell you, being crushed flat ain't no fun."

I gulped. "I will too." I wondered if I meant it.

"There may be a better way," Benito said. "We must find the stream. Corbett, can you drive?"

We turned left. I had the whole fender to sprawl on now. The car seemed more docile, too, but I wasn't going to trust it. I didn't really have to-- I was getting good at manipulating the gas widget.

We came to a horde of people dressed in the finery of all ages: velvet robes, flare pants, alligator shoes. Corbett shouted at me. "Stopping!" He turned off the key before I could do anything, and the car rolled to a halt.

Fireflakes fell on us. "Now what?"

Corbett was out of the car and looking at a beefy man in gaudy tunic, crimson sash, and black gloveleather boots. There was a big leather wallet hung on a golden chain around his neck, and he stared into it, not looking up. The fireflakes had burned holes in his tunic and scorched his hair.

Corbett stood in front of him. When the burly man didn't look up, Corbett stooped over so that his face was in line with the wallet. "Give me my money!" Corbett shouted.

"You son of a b.i.t.c.h, you owe me!"

"But, I've had this problem, see, my girl is--" Corbett began.

"I don't want to hear any stories, I just want my money! Arrgh!" A big fireflake settled on the crown of his head. He tried to brush it off.

"Hang tough," Corbett said. He came back to the car chuckling. "Long Harry there loaned me some cash, once. Six for five-- every week."

I nodded. There were lots of others there, crying into their purses. The rain of fire seemed heavier here. "Let's get going." I didn't like Corbett gloating over them-- but if anybody deserved to be here, it was them. Loan shark is as low a form of life as there is.

We didn't drive so fast that we couldn't talk. "Funny thing about Harry," Corbett said. "He had to give up the loan shark business. Had a customer with a hit man for a friend. Took his buddy Lem to see Harry, but Harry wouldn't listen. Just kept saying 'Give me my money.' So Lem had a talk with Harry."

"Lem?" Billy asked. He sounded puzzled.

"Yeah. I don't know what he told Harry, but just after that all of Harry's customers were off the hook. Just had to pay what they'd got in the first place."

"Lem," Billy said. "Little guy? About my size? Big scar over his left eye?"

"Yeah," Corbett said. "You know him?"

"Kind of. They used to let him onto the island for a day. One day a year. The rest of the time he was out in the blood. I always did wonder why."

"We are coming to the stream," Benito said. "The fire does not fall there."

CHAPTER 19

The river was narrow but fast. Its roar was different somehow from that of water, and it was still bright scarlet. The air was thick with the smell of blood.

Nonetheless we walked down and bathed our half-broiled feet in it. Afterward we walked the cool mud of the bank with our sandals off until we reached the waterfall. There we watched endless tons of blood falling into the darkness.

I said, "Now what?"

Benito scowled in indecision. "It is a risk. The monster Geryon carried Dante and Vergil into lower h.e.l.l. But they were,on a holy errand. We are not. I have known Geryon. He is not worthy of trust."

"The pa.s.sword," I remembered.

"'This has been willed where what is willed must be.' Yes. Shall we try it?"

"Better'n jumping." Billy looked at Benito. "It is, ain't it? What can he do to us? Eat us?"

"Summon Minos."

"Let's try it," said Corbett. "We've gotten this far without anyone doing that."

"Are we agreed, then? Good. Now we must summon Geryon. We need a signal, something to get his attention. Dante flung a rope into the abyss."

"A signd," said Corbett. "Does it have to be subtle?"

"I should not think that subtlety would be necessary."

"We wouldn't want Geryon to think were crude, would we? Some delicate change in the environment, just noticeable enough to attract his attention. Let me see." Corbett walked back to the car and switched on the ignition. He went around to the back and unscrewed the gas cap.

A fireflake fell past his nose. He blew on it, guiding it into the gas tank. The tank lit with a whoosh. Hurriedly Corbett reached into the car and shifted it into first gear. We stood well back and watched it roll over the edge.

"Subtlety is all," said Corbett.

The car fell like a battlefield flare. It pa.s.sed and illuminated a compact body already rising through the murk.

"He knew we were here." Corbett was flat on his belly with his face over the cliff's edge. "We didn't need a signal."

"He will not come without a signal," said Benito.

The car was a towering flame at the base of the cliff. Lighted from below, Geryon was a compact shadow with a slender, twisting tail. He floated up to us, his features growing clear. He hovered at our height, smiled rea.s.suringly at us with a startlingly human face, then slid forward onto the rock ledge, leaving his tail hanging free in s.p.a.ce.

Geryon was as big as a rowboat, and wingless. His hind feet were webbed, built for swimming. His almost human head was hairless, the mouth wide, the chin broad and strong, the nose very wide and flat, with large nostrils. The head sloped back to round shoulders, without benefit of neck.

His arms were human enough, the size of my own. On Geryon they were disproportionately small. Something was funny about the hand: the fingers were short and thick, designed for ripping.

I could see him as an air-breathing aquatic beast that had developed human intelligence. I wondered about his nose. It was big enough to feed him air fast, hooded to keep water out. Reasonable, but different from the cetacean design.

His pelt had the look of medieval tapestry: golden knots and figures on a blue-gray background. Lovely; a trifle flashy. And adequate camouflage if he was used to hovering just beneath sunlit water.

Altogether he was a believable alien, excluding his ability to fly. I didn't like that. Bad enough if Infernoland had been built by humans. What if it had been built by interstellar conquerors for their own amus.e.m.e.nt?

Geryon's voice was deep, with a queer buzzing quality. "h.e.l.lo, Benito. Three of them? Isn't that a bit much?"

Benito was brusque. He didn't like Geryon. "This has been willed where what is willed must be. In any case, you must have noticed how the d.a.m.ned flow in like a river in flood--"

"Haven't I just. Swamping you, are they? I think the end of the world must be near. h.e.l.l is getting full," said the alien. "Well, we who serve G.o.d's will in h.e.l.l have precious little of free will, eh, Benito? Climb aboard, you. I hope you all can hang on."

He had spoken jovially, with no bitterness and only the merest trace of mockery.

My foot kicked something rigid as I tried to board Geryon's reasonably flat back. I looked down. It wasn't easy to see, but there was metal belted about Geryon's belly, machinery covered with material the same color as his gaudy pelt.

Antigravity?

I settled behind the monster's head. Billy's arms closed about my waist. Corbett was behind him, and Benito last, braving the twin stings in the forked tail. Geryon grinned at me over his shoulder and pushed back from the edge.

Billy's arms tightened convulsively. I saw that his eyes were closed tight, his teeth clenched.

My view of h.e.l.l was darkness and firelit smokes, the fires tracing concentric arcs. Geryon tilted to one side and dropped in a slow spiral. The scarlet waterfall dashed itself to foam and spray on the rocks. Billy was squeezing the breath from me, but I didn't complain. I heard whimpering noises being squeezed from him.

We touched down.

I said, "Your first flight, Billy?"

"Yeah."

"We're down. You can let go."

"Yeah." He unlocked his arms in stages and climbed down on shaky legs. I followed.

Geryon floated up a few feet and hovered. "Hey, Benito," he called. His voice was full of artificial camaraderie, more menacing than threats. "Why is it, Benito, that the people you travel with don't ever come back?" The monster lifted toward the sky, chortling.

Carefully casual, Corbett asked, Benito, "You've been here before?"

"I have rescued others," Benito answered.

"How many?"

"Six. One at a time. No matter how many come with me at first, no more than one at a time ever seems to reach the exit point. Perhaps this time we will be more fortunate."

"What happens to the others?" I asked.

"Why did you come back?" Corbett demanded.

We'd both spoken at once, and Benito chose to answer neither of us.

"Have you seen the exit?" Corbett asked.

Benito's voice was colorlessly grim. "Yes."

"And gone beyond it?"

"No. But it follows Dante's route, which leads to Purgatory. I came back to find others in need of guidance. Do you object, Allen Carpentier? Should I have left you in the bottle?"

"Hey, hey, hey!" Billy was dancing with impatience. "If we're going, let's go! What's all the jawing about?"

Benito nodded and led us off downslope. We felt exposed on level ground, and Geryon couldn't be the only flying thing. He hadn't reported us (had he?), but that was no guarantee that something else wouldn't. We moved swiftly across what seemed to be solid rock, always downhill, further into murk and gloom, until we came to a cliff edge.

There was a ditch in front of us, seventy or eighty feet deep and perhaps twice that wide. It was divided in the middle by a low wall of rock. Just off to our left was a pa.s.sageway in the dividing rock wall. The divider was low enough that we could see over it, lower than the height of a normal man-- --and the ditch was full. Ma.s.ses of humanity moved in a standard traffic pattern, all hurrying along, not quite running, leftbound on the far side, rightward on the near side. They moved fast.

They moved fast because there were beings with whips urging them along. It took a moment for that to register.

Okay, Carpentier, you're in h.e.l.l-- and there are demons in h.e.l.l. There were things on the red-hot wall that might have been demons if you could have seen them clearly through the fog. There's Geryon, certainly a monster. Of course Big Juju can make demons.

But I hadn't wanted to believe it.

Now I was looking at them. They were blackskinned rather than the red I'd expected, and they were at least ten feet tall. They had horns and tails and were uglier than I could have imagined. They used whips twice as long as themselves. They screamed at the laggards: "Along with you, Big Morris, there's no a.s.s to sell here!"

"Git along, little dogie, git along, git along--"

Wails and groans rose from the pit, and screams of pain and rage. Snapl Crack! Chunks of flesh flew from the backs of those who slowed down.

"Who..." whispered Corbett. He ran out of voice and had to try again. "Who are they?" He was frightened, and why not? I was scared out of my mind. The demons were looking up at us-- but they went back to their tasks, gleefully lashing the crowd. I recognized one of the runners. He was a famous movie director-producer, idolized by millions when I was younger. He was on the near side, but as he reached the pa.s.sageway in the dividing wall the demon stationed there lashed him until he went through and joined those scurrying in the other direction.

I'd never met him, but I knew who he was. And I knew who these people must be.