Whiskey and Water (34 page)

God despised this place, and she could
feel His disdain as a shunned child feels a parent's scorn: like a thorn in her
palm, like a stone in her bosom. Hell is not merely the absence of God. It is
the knowledge of His disregard.

For a moment, as she always did when she
came to this place, she pitied the stiff-necked Lord of Hell.

She emerged on basalt paving stones long
as a coffin and wide as a grave, the black rock as sharp-edged as if they had
just been laid, mortarless, without space to slip a knife blade between. A road
curved before her, down to a span of bridge over a calm green river. Beyond it
rose a spired and twisted castle like some barbaric wrought-iron crown, Hell's
banner snapping from every tower.
Gules, simple:
the red of flame and
the red of blood, the red of roses and the red of a fox's brush. Windows glinted
like rough-cut diamonds in each minaret, reflecting light though no sun shone
in the coiled sky overhead.

Fionnghuala's footsteps scouted in
advance, the echoes resounding in layers, some crisp and some curved as she
crossed the bridge.
Tip tap, tip tap.
No point in trying to sneak.
Lucifer knew she was returning. And here came a horseman now, clopping along on
a red bay caparisoned black and leading a silk-gray mare. Fionnghuala paused
beyond the bridge, amused by the heavy cloak flowing from his shoulders—dense,
soft wool lined with silk so dark a red it gleamed purple where the shadows
fell — and by the archaic breastplate, and the gauntlets on the big hands
gentling the reins. At least he wasn't wearing a helm. His hair curled over his
shoulders in fussy ringlets. The horse dipped his head as the rider reined him
to a halt, and stood, whuffing softly, calm as if he gazed over green fields
and not the hollow pasturage of Hell.

"You have to stop letting the Devil
dress you, Keith," Fionnghuala said, folding her arms under her cloak.
Feathers tickled her neck as she shook her head. "You look like a Dürer
self-portrait."

"Except not going bald," he
answered, and leaned down to offer her the reins on the mare's bridle. "What
brings you back to Hell?"

"A message for His Majesty," she
answered. Her shoes were unsuited to riding, but she swung up. The mare barely
noticed the weight across the saddle. Fionnghuala had bones like a bird's. The
horse turned willingly, though, at the caress of the reins on her neck, and
Keith wheeled his broad-chested steed the opposite way and brought him
parallel.

"I wish you wouldn't do this,"
Keith said. "I knew what I was walking into. You shouldn't risk yourself
for me."

The gray mare shook her head. Fionnghuala
eased her grip on the reins. "There's no risk. I'm merely playing
messenger, as befits a winged thing. He told you?"

"Why would he fail to? Any lever he
can lay his hand on. You know how he is."

"Yes," Fionnghuala answered. The
green scent of the river followed them uproad, and she could hear the lost
souls singing from its shallows. It was one thing to go to the teind, willing
or unwilling — another entirely to do the Devil's bidding once he had you. The
old snake had a knack for getting what he wanted, though. "I was surprised
he took you. Dragon Prince."

"Don't remind me," he said. The
sideways glance he shot her revealed pale eyes under shaggy ginger brows. He'd
kept his beard clipped close, though he'd let his hair grow, and it did give
him a Renaissance air. "Not all the perfumes of Araby— "

She knew him too well for the mask of
dignity to fool her. "It's hardly a
Little
hand," she said,
tartly. "What use has he for a soul already damned?"

Keith chuckled, keeping his restive horse
to a stately walk. The gate loomed faster than he wanted, anyway: a great
alligator-jawed portcullis, tall enough for a cargo train to pass through. Of
course, there were railroads in Hell.

'It's a moral victory if you go
willing?" Keith said. "Better ask what use he has for a Dragon
Prince, Nuala."

"What's a Dragon Prince for? Lucifer
considers conquest."

We're not for conquest," Keith
answered. "We're for sacrifice. Last stands and being the stone the hammer
shatters itself upon. Alas for the stone, it does not survive the
experience." Strong shoulders rolled, straining the straps on the
breastplate. "I'm still waiting for the sacrifice. History isn't done with
me yet."

The mare swerved at the pressure of
Fionnghuala's knee, and brought her rider close enough to Keith that she could
lay a hand on his gauntlet. Her fingers looked ridiculous there, laid on scaled
iron, and when she squeezed she could not dent the armor.

"The last defender of Hell," she
said, and let her hand fall to her saddle.

"Beats Camelot," he answered.

They shared a grin, and rode side by side
under the high, fanged gate. The horses were whisked away almost before Keith
could offer Fionnghuala his cupped hands to dismount, invisible servants
leading them to airy stables deep with straw. The Devil is a horseman.

They crossed the courtyard side by side,
as they had ridden in. The great doors stood open before them. Striking against
the dark stone of the palace, they were broad slabs of pale wood, pied with
irregular patches of satiny charcoal and silver: spalted oak, lovely in its
rottenness.

"Is the master at home?"

"Of course," Keith said. She had
always seemed a rock to him, an iron "woman with her iron hair. Even here
in Hell, she stood as straight as an angel. He stripped off his gauntlets and
laid them on a table in the hall; another invisible servant whisked them away.
Convenient toy. "He's waiting for you. And the table is laid. He said to
ask if your old room would serve, and to say he kept it for you."

"There are a thousand rooms in my
father's house," Fionnghuala said, not hiding the irony. "Am I meant
to stay long enough to need a bed?

"Traveler's rest," Keith
answered. He offered her an elbow, and she accepted, light on her toes, long-necked
and lithe.

The hall was broad, the flagstones dark
and silver slate strewn with rushes, the walls tapestry-hung. "He kept my
room?" "Aye," Keith said. "Did you ever serve him?"
"No," she answered. "Not as he wished. I never did."
"Murchaud did."

"Murchaud had his reasons." Her
shrug rippled the spread of her cloak like wings. "Hell's not so bad, I
understand, after Faerie. And Murchaud never had a relationship with God to
forfeit. So no, I didn't serve him. But we were, I suppose, after a fashion,
friends. As much as he in his loneliness can call anyone friend."

Her footstep hesitated. At the same
moment, Keith paused and stepped away from her, clearing a space to swing the
sword he wore at his hip, should the need arise. He wasn't surprised by who
strolled out of the shadows to greet them, and neither was Fionnghuala. But he
didn't pull his hand from his hilt, although he bowed stiffly to the slender,
red-haired man who came forward, one hand extended.

"Speak of the devil," Keith
said.

"I didn't know the Morningstar had
guests," Christian answered, tugging his gloves off one finger at a time.
He laid them on an end table, where they vanished as smoothly as Keith's
gauntlets had, and shrugged out of his denim coat as well. "I would have
dressed for company."

"I'm resident," Keith answered,
settling on his heels, easing his shoulders and neck. "What brings you to
our half of Hell? Shouldn't you be out going up and down in the world? "

Christian smiled. "I was invited. For
the masque. All Hell is coming, and perhaps even Faerie. Marley is leaving us,
going back to the Snow Queen. You didn't know?"

"Always the last to," Keith
temporized. "And Lucifer's throwing him a ball."

"I imagine he's sending invitations
as we speak. Perhaps that's why he's summoned you, Nuala." Christian
acknowledged her with a bow. Or has it to do with your assignation with
Michael, the other night?"

Of all the stories, he was the devil she
liked the least. Dante's Devil was easily avoided, an idiot god ceaselessly
gnawing, crouched on his idiot throne. Milton's had a certain urbane bravado,
for all his groaning wings and reek of brimstone. Lucifer was what he was,
broken and beautiful. . . .

Christian was the youngest, cat-cruel and
cat-clever, the master of bad deals and worse bargains, a cinema trickster. At
least the Morningstar loved what he destroyed. Christian went at it for the
sheer joy of malice.

I am but a messenger," she said. In
another shape, she would have tanned her wings and hissed; it came through in
her voice. "And I have a message to deliver. If you will excuse us?"

"Of course." He nodded and
turned to watch them pass.

She hurried, and Keith kept up with her,
their cloaks fluttering behind them, dark wings and pale. Neither one liked
wearing the weight of Christian's gaze.

"Michael offered a bargain?"
Keith asked, when they were out of earshot.

Fionnghuala hitched her feathers tighter
about her shoulders. "Michael offered nothing new. If Lucifer would bend
his neck, his Lord would love him again."

"In four thousand years," Keith
said, rubbing the line between his eyes, "you would think that one of them
would have grown up a little."

Fionnghuala's laugh was anything but
ladylike. "As below, so above," she said. She took his arm back, and
squeezed his elbow hard. "I've missed you."

"And I you," he answered.
"I'm a dog on a chain here, and you know how this place weighs your soul."
He covered her hand with his own for a moment, as they paused before another
great set of spalted oaken doors. These were carved in elaborate filigree, and
glimpses of the room beyond could be seen through the open-work. It was a long
room, richly appointed. Someone indistinct, all in black with golden curls,
stood at the far end, head bowed before the fire. Keith lowered his voice.
"Have you seen Elaine? Or Ian?"

"Not of late. I can bring them a
message, if you like."

"With their invitation to the
ball?"

She snorted. He stepped forward, leading
her, and the doors eased open on silent hinges. On the right was a cozy nook of
three or four chairs and a settee arranged around a low oval table. On their
left stood a long table laden with scented platters. Three places had been set,
one at the head and one on either side, and the vast empty length stretching
below it sent Fionnghuala's loneliness aching across the bridge of her nose.

Lucifer did not raise his head as they
came forth. He stood before the fire, shoulders hunched under his tight-folded
pinions, one hand cupped loosely around the bell of a glass, and Fionnghuala
could see that his eyes were closed, the corners pinched as if he addressed
some inward pain.

He’s a snake.
But it didn't stop her from pitying him.

"Morningstar," she said,
stepping away from Keith MacNeill as the Dragon Prince released her arm. "I
bring a message from Michael." He didn't move, didn't flicker a feather or
raise one fine-boned hand to stop her words. She thought of Christian, smug in
the empty, echoing castle, and Michael with foresty wings bowering the girl in
the rain. It was information, and information was currency.

And if she didn't trust Lucifer, she
called him a friend. And she didn't like Christian at all. "And there's news,
as well, old Swan."

And perhaps I know a way around Michael's
obduracy.

He straightened, wings fanning for balance
as he turned, and held his glass out to her with the single faint lip-print
smudging the rim. He smiled like a shark as she took it, the grief vanished as
if it had never been. "Please," he said. "Nuala. Drink. You have
traveled far."

Please Come to Boston

R
umpelstiltskin finally resolved that Gypsy wasn't an
immediate threat to the health and well-being of all concerned around
suppertime on Thursday, after the assemblage had broken for sleep and daylight duties
and reconvened to continue discussion of unicorns and Faeries and points
between. The cat celebrated by slipping from his usual vantage in the hallway
behind the wrought-iron plant stand to twine the big man's ankles and beg for
crumbs of cheese, which Gypsy fed him whenever Autumn wasn't looking.
Rumpelstiltskin pushed them around on the carpet with soft white-rimmed toes
until he was satisfied they weren't going to bite him back, then consumed them
with a great show of satisfaction and a flipping tail-tip.

Gypsy sat in Autumn's usual armchair with
a pile of reference books beside him and Carel's ThinkPad open on his knee, the
sound dialed down to counteract the tinny MIDI files infesting half the Web
pages he surfed. Autumn, her hair held out of her face with the back of her
left hand, sprawled on the floor, where she drew charts and family trees on a
big sheet of craft paper with repurposed dry-erase markers. All three lifted
their heads when the front door swung open, cooling the house with a draft.

"Carel?"

"I've brought company," Carel
called back. "Is that Gypsy's car in the drive? . . . Oh, hi, Gyp."