Down in Flames Read online

  But the most significant feature amid all this strangeness, more vast than any earthly canyon, was the Pit of Fire. Once the great pit had been filled with torturous flame and the howling, suffering dead, but since the reform, it had been extinguished and now only steamed with lingering heat. These days the dead were ferried to the vast Caverns of Woe instead, where they spent years spellbound, trapped in dreams woven from their own misdeeds. That fate was hard to bear, but not as cruel as the flames, of course. And, unlike the flames, a soul that entered the Caverns of Woe could someday be released and allowed to move on. It might take decades or centuries or even millennia, but redemption was possible.

  Donny stared at the bizarre world in all its strange grandeur. It was fearsome. It was unimaginable. It was terrible.

  It was home.

  • • •

  They were nearing the Pillar Obscura, Angela’s ancestral home, when she said, “Brace yourself.” Donny looked down the path and saw a blur coming at them.

  “ARGL! ARGLBRGL!” the blur shouted.

  “Easy, boy,” Donny pleaded, holding out his arms. Fortunately, it was Angela that the imp plowed into at the speed of a car. She could handle the impact, but it still knocked her a dozen feet backward, where she landed in a giggly pile.

  “Hello, Arglbrgl,” she said, scratching the imp behind the ear. Arglbrgl looked at Donny and bounded over, knocking him down with only a fraction of the force.

  “Thanks for taking it easy on me,” Donny said as Arglbrgl’s forked, raspy tongue scraped across his cheek. The imp was shaped like a huge horned toad and was covered in loose skin. When he was wary or angry, he could double in girth by puffing himself out with sharp spines protruding everywhere. Among friends, he kept himself deflated. His short tail, which ended in the shape of a spade, wagged furiously.

  A few more minutes along the path brought them into the city that surrounded the pillar. They passed strange beings of all types. There were gargoylelike imps, scary demons, and imposing archdemons, along with others who looked human. That last group might have been archdemons in human form, or more likely one of the souls of the dead who had assumed physical shape upon arriving in Sulfur. It was less likely that they were plain old people. A living human being like Donny was the rarest creature of all in Sulfur.

  When they arrived at Angela’s home, carved into the stone of the enormous Pillar Obscura, a familiar being opened the door for them. It was Zig-Zag, the archdemon who served as Angela’s advisor. Donny had almost gotten used to the fact that Zig-Zag had two heads, each with one eye, one ear, and a sort of half nose with a single nostril.

  “Welcome back,” said the head on the left.

  “Zig-Zag, you old so-and-so,” Angela purred.

  “Hi, Zig. Hi, Zag,” Donny said, speaking to each head in turn. They nodded and smiled back.

  “Did you have a successful trip, Angela?” asked Zag.

  “Got the two things I wanted. Cash and curds,” Angela said.

  “And did you enjoy your return to the mortal world, Donny?” asked Zig.

  Donny paused, thinking about that moment on the boat with a gun pointed his way, and how he’d stared into the black hole of its barrel, waiting for death to come flying out. “The cheese curds were good,” he finally said. He looked around the room. “Is Tizzy asleep?” Tizzy was the seven-year-old bundle of effervescence who Angela had found as an abandoned baby.

  “She is,” said Zag.

  Zig smiled at Angela. “We have news. I think we have identified the next candidate in line for one of the council seats. It should make you very happy.”

  Zag sighed. “Unfortunately, Zig is correct,” he moaned. Donny grinned. As usual, Zig and Zag did not see eye-to-eye, especially when it came to the politics of Sulfur. Zig was all in favor of the great reform that resulted in the extinguishing of the Pit of Fire. Zag always thought the old ways were the best ways.

  “I was going to hit the sack,” Angela said, “but now you’ve got me curious.”

  Donny had been worn-out by his brush with danger. “I’m going to bed,” he said. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.” He went upstairs and down the stone hallway to his bedroom. He passed Tizzy’s room, where Nanny sat in a chair outside the door.

  Donny always had to stifle a laugh when he looked at Nanny. She was a plump reptilian imp dressed like someone’s demented idea of a traditional British storybook nanny. At the moment she (if Nanny even was a she) wore brown tights, a dress with long sleeves and puffy shoulders, a white apron, and a flat hat with a plastic flower sticking up from one side.

  He kept to the far side of the hall, because Nanny was baring her sharp, crooked teeth. Fortunately, Angela had given her strict orders not to attack or bite him anymore. “Hi, Nanny,” he said with a wave.

  “Nanny no bite,” she muttered.

  “Right. Nice to see you, too.”

  It wasn’t long before he’d washed up, brushed his teeth, and flopped into his insanely comfortable canopy bed. Princes must sleep in beds like this, he thought. There were definitely perks to living with Angela Obscura.

  He smiled. But as he dozed off, his mind turned back to that gun and the close call on the boat. His dreams were haunted by all the terrors he’d faced since arriving in a place that, only a few months before, he would have said didn’t really exist.

  CHAPTER 5

  The next morning Donny’s mood improved when Tizzy dragged him out of bed to play a board game. As soon as Angela came downstairs, they headed out the door and to the diner.

  It still felt strange to find a classic diner tucked among buildings that looked hundreds or thousands of years old. But there it was, with its checkerboard floor, a long, shiny counter lined with stools, and a row of booths on the other side. The place felt like it came out of the 1940s or ’50s, and so did its only employee, Cookie. Cookie was human, or at least she used to be. Now she was basically a solid ghost, because she was one of the souls who’d been useful enough to be spared punishment. She worked in the diner, cooking for archdemons with a craving for human food, and the occasional mortal. Considering that she’d done something bad enough to be sent to the underworld, Donny thought she was pretty nice. And she sure could cook.

  Donny demolished a grilled blueberry muffin, a ham and cheese omelet, way too much bacon, and a glass of milk, then sat happily back with a full belly. Tizzy ran to the jukebox, fired up some old rock and roll songs from the fifties, and danced by herself at the other end of the diner.

  “All righty, Cricket,” Angela said to Donny, pouring herself another cup of tea. “We have a new assignment on our hands.”

  “Uh-oh,” Donny said.

  “Uh-oh what?” Angela shot back. “Where’s the enthusiasm?”

  “It’s just that so far, whenever you tell me we have a mission, I end up nearly getting killed.”

  “Aw, c’mon. Name one time.”

  “In Brooklyn, when that demon thing knocked me off the fire escape and tried to claw me to death. And just now in Milwaukee, when that guy waved the gun at me. That’s not all, but I’m just saying, I don’t think you worry a lot about my safety.”

  She waved that thought away with the back of her hand. “Safety, shmafety. You’ll be fine.”

  Donny frowned. He wasn’t so sure. “Well, what’s the assignment?”

  She raised two fingers. “It’s twofold. First, as you know, we’re down a couple of members of the council. So we’ll head to the Pillar Cataracta, almost at the far end of Sulfur. Ungo Cataracta lives there. Since he appears to be in favor of keeping the Pit of Fire extinguished, I’m going to talk him into joining the council.”

  “That doesn’t sound very dangerous,” Donny said.

  “Exactly! You worry too much. Now then: part two of our assignment is to help Ungo track down a mysterious beast that’s on a murder spree.”

  Donny sighed. “That sounds extremely dangerous.”

  “You’ll be fine,” Angela cooed, patting him on the knee. �
�I could use all the help I can get on this, so you really need to come.”

  “I don’t see how I can help—”

  “Of course you can,” she interrupted. “Listen, Donny, this is important. I need Ungo on the Infernal Council. Invitations are given based on the prestige of the pillar and the family. If Ungo Cataracta declines, the next invitee may not see things my way. If I can help Ungo catch this monster, maybe he’s more likely to accept the invitation.”

  “Why wouldn’t he accept anyway? Isn’t it, like, a big honor to be on the council?”

  “You’ve obviously never governed anything. It’s an honor, but a crummy one. You sit around with a bunch of blowhards and argue about stuff for what feels like centuries.” She leaned in to stare at Donny with those luminous eyes that were somewhere between black and purple. “But anyway, you understand that I need you, right? Don’t forget: you promised to help me the first time we met, when I saved you from the fire. And I also rescued you from Havoc’s lair. . . .” She tilted her head and batted her lashes.

  That much was true, Donny knew. If it weren’t for Angela, he wouldn’t be alive. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure. Of course I’ll go.”

  CHAPTER 6

  They walked up the stone steps toward the exit from Sulfur. Donny wore a backpack with a few days’ worth of stuff, as Angela had advised. She had a big leather satchel slung over one shoulder. At her side she wore a scabbard, and Donny saw the grip of a sword at the top. He knew that weapon well.

  “You brought the flaming sword,” he said.

  “Yup. You can tell I mean business.”

  As usual, the monstrous creature named Grunyon was guarding the doorway that led to the fire-portal. He was easily eight feet tall and clad in armor from head to toe.

  “Circus peanuts?” Grunyon asked. He was in the habit of requesting some earthly treat to devour each time Angela ventured to the mortal realm.

  “Seriously, Grunyon, I didn’t think anybody ate those nasty things,” Angela said. “But I’m sorry to tell you that I won’t be spending any time on Earth right now. We’re just hitting a way station so we can get to the Pillar Cataracta. Maybe next time.” Grunyon’s head sagged at the news, but he opened the door for Angela and Donny to pass through.

  “What do you mean, way station?” Donny asked as they walked down the curving tunnel.

  “Ah, let me explain,” Angela said. “We can’t use fire-portals to go from point to point in Sulfur. Nobody knows why. It just doesn’t work. So we’ll go to a way station in the mortal realm, and from there we can jump to a different place in Sulfur.”

  “But we took a chariot a long way to the Caverns of Woe,” Donny pointed out. “And to the refinery. Why don’t we do that now?”

  “Don’t be dense. Those places were relatively close; plus, they don’t have portals nearby. So the chariots were the quickest way to go. But the Pillar Cataracta is much, much farther. It would take us days by chariot.”

  The orange glow of the fire-portal grew stronger as they approached. They came around the final bend in the stone corridor, and there was the wall of brilliant ruby-red flame, flowing upward in an almost liquid style. It looked like a waterfall running in reverse.

  Sitting beside the fire was the tiny hunched figure of Porta the keeper, cloaked in a dark, shabby robe. Anyone might have thought that it was a child inside that costume. Donny knew better. Porta always made him nervous—but that was probably because of the nasty weapon propped beside her chair, a club with vicious spikes jutting from its head like a steel flower. Her hand edged toward the weapon and her hooded head lifted by a fraction as they approached.

  “Hello, Porta,” Angela said with a wave of her hand. “We’ll be traveling to the Pillar Cataracta. What way stations are available?”

  Porta relaxed and took her hand from the shaft of the club. She turned slowly to the wall of flame. She reached out and made a broad circular gesture with her arms. A round bulge appeared in the flame and transformed into a fiery depiction of Earth. All of the globe, land and sea, was made of that deep-red fire, with the oceans darkest of all. Porta wiggled her fingers at the map, and points of light appeared across the land.

  “There were a lot more lights the last time we did this,” Donny said.

  “We’re only looking at way stations this time, and those are special. They’re well hidden, and not so numerous.” Angela hummed to herself as she watched the globe spin. Donny recognized the continents as they rotated past. North America rolled out of sight, and the dark Pacific passed by. In the middle of that darkness he saw a single point of light. Hawaii, he guessed. Then he saw Australia to the south, with just two spots of light. Next Asia came into view, and Angela pointed. “Oh, that one!” she cried. “That’s the one.”

  Porta swept her hands as if drawing the scent of a flower to her nose, and that portion of the globe came into closer view. She reached out, her fingertips brushing the wall of flame, and made a diamond shape between her forefingers and thumbs. When she drew her hands apart again, the diamond shape grew. The flames within darkened to black and burnt out, leaving a layer of papery ash behind. Donny knew that an earthly destination was on the other side of that flimsy parchment. All they had to do was walk right through it.

  “Here we go,” Angela said. She took Donny by the wrist. The ash disintegrated as they stepped into another world.

  CHAPTER 7

  A temple, Donny thought as soon as they’d entered the beautiful stone-walled room. After the heat of Sulfur, a world that always felt like a Florida summer, the blast of cool air that greeted him was sweet relief.

  “Hello, keeper,” Angela said. Donny turned to see who she was talking to. Beside the fire was a creature the size and shape of Porta, dressed in a similar cloak and hood. Like Porta, this creature had weapons next to her chair. In this case, it was a row of foot-long daggers, sitting in a bucket like a bouquet of flowers. The keeper took one dagger by the blade and raised it over her shoulder, ready to launch it directly at Donny’s torso.

  “Wait!” Angela cried. “This mortal is with me. Donny, show her the mark on your palm.”

  Donny’s hand shot up, displaying the symbol that Angela had embedded there when they’d first met: a winged O that stood for Obscura, her family name. The keeper’s head angled to one side. Then she relaxed and set the blade back down inside the bucket.

  “Yikes,” Donny muttered. Sometimes he forgot that unauthorized mortals were not tolerated in Sulfur. And apparently not in its way stations, either. He took a second glance at his palm, because he’d noticed something peculiar. The symbol used to be distinct and almost pure white, as if his skin were bleached. But now it seemed to be fading. “Look,” he said. “It’s going away.”

  “Yeah, it’ll do that over time. I’ll freshen it up for you soon,” she replied.

  Donny rubbed the mark with his other thumb. Then he allowed himself to appreciate the beauty and antiquity of whatever this place was that they’d come to. He spun in a circle to take it all in. The high walls were natural rock, but almost completely etched with carvings. Some of them were words, with ancient characters that looked a little like stick figures. It was vaguely familiar, as if he’d seen it somewhere in history class or a museum. Not Egyptian hieroglyphics, or ancient Chinese, but not too different from either of those. The rest of the carvings were bold patterns or animal forms. At a glance he saw lion heads and elephants and two-headed birds and even faces that looked like the archdemons of Sulfur.

  Halfway through his turn, he once again faced the fire-portal through which they had entered, and this time he took a closer look at the fire. The flames were coming out of a pile of rocks in a deep niche at the back of the chamber—blue at the edges, with a bright wave of orange in the middle. He hadn’t seen anything like this in their travels so far. Typically the fires they passed through on Earth came from propane, or even an old-fashioned wood fire. But this came out of the ground itself, like the portal in the infernal world.

>   “Wait, are we still in Sulfur?”

  “Nope,” said Angela. “You’re looking at a natural eternal flame. This one’s been coming out of the ground here for thousands of years. These happen around the globe. People know about lots of them—but not all of them. We keep the best ones to ourselves.”

  Donny stared at the flame as it rippled like a pennant. “How does it work? I mean, why is there fire coming out of the ground?”

  “Oh, natural gas leaking out of crevices, something like that,” Angela told him. “It started burning a long time ago and won’t stop until the gas runs out. These were probably our first doorways to the mortal world. But it’s getting harder to keep them secret. You people keep sticking your noses into every corner of the planet.”

  Donny completed his circle, absorbing the sights of the temple. “The whole place is amazing,” Donny said.

  “Yeah, Indiana Jones would wet his pants if he saw this.”

  Donny chuckled. “Where exactly are we? It looked like we were going to India.”

  “This is Tibet. Thousands of feet up in the Himalayas, inside a lost temple.”

  “This is in the Himalayas? Like, Mount Everest? Those Himalayas? Seriously?”

  Angela pointed toward the narrow cleft in the rock that led out of the temple. There was dim sunlight seeping through and a ghostly whistle of wind. “You doubt me? Go take a gander.”

  Donny walked to the opening. Frigid air rushed in as he approached, overpowering the warmth of the eternal flame. Before he stepped through, he looked up. A jumble of boulders was poised delicately above him, and the only thing that kept them from collapse was a thick steel beam supporting a wide stone at the bottom. Leaning against the stone wall, right near the beam, was something like a sledgehammer. It was easy to picture the keeper swinging the hammer, knocking the steel beam loose, and dropping a few tons of boulders into the gap. He looked back at Angela.