The Kill Society (Sandman Slim)(61)

All the tough talk and bad thoughts evaporate in the next few seconds as Vehuel gets out of the Charger and says a few words.

The mountain begins to rumble and split open. Massive doors of black stone swing wide, opening to reveal another road leading under the mountain itself. The doors are still moving when the Charger slowly enters the passage into the mountain. Gisco in his convertible goes in second, with the rest of us on bikes on his tail. The rest of the havoc follow us underground. For a long time. When the mountain doors slam shut behind us, every vehicle with a working headlight turns it on.

The road going down is almost as steep as the one coming up. If someone has fucked with the chains on the flatbed and they break, a lot of cars are going to get pancaked. I stay close to the Charger in case I have to pull Alice out.

I haven’t been in this kind of dark since I was in Tartarus and I don’t like it. The big difference here is that the longer we move down, the cooler and wetter the air gets. Which isn’t to say it’s a fucking picnic tunneling under the Tenebrae’s shitty skin. The noise from all the vehicles reverberates off the stone walls and gives everybody migraines. Shadows snake and slide along the walls, thrown at crazy angles by the jagged, shiny rock formations. After the Hellion and angel attacks, you can feel everybody tense, expecting the worst. But the shadows are just shadows and it’s hard to stay scared forever. After a while, they’re just another part of the scenery.

Just like it was easy to lose track of time in the Tenebrae, it’s just as easy here, crawling at a few miles an hour in pitch dark. Eventually, though, the road turns from a steep slope to a gentle grade, and finally eases into a flat, straight line. Better than that, there’s light up ahead. The Magistrate must have seen it, too, because the Charger roars forward. We gun the bikes to chase the car’s receding taillights, finally catching up just as the road opens into a cavern that looks to be a mile wide and just as tall. That’s not what gets everyone’s attention, though.

It’s the three large ships floating nearby on a rushing river.

The Charger stops by a pier extending out a few dozen yards into the water. As the Magistrate and angels get out of the car, we kill the bikes and go over to them.

“Welcome to the Styx, the first and oldest river in Hades,” says Vehuel.

I go to the side of the pier.

“It doesn’t really look like a Hellion river.”

Vehuel gives me a look.

“Excuse me?”

“Most of the rivers I’ve seen in Hell are a lot more Hell-y. You know. Rivers of shit or blood or fire.”

“No. There’s none of that here. The Styx is merely water, though few know of this tributary’s existence.”

“And that’s the way I like it,” says an old man who’d been hiding behind one of the pier supports. His eyes narrow at us, but they turn to slits when he looks at the angels. “Greetings, Vehuel,” he says.

“Charon,” she says, a hint of surprise in her voice. “I thought you’d retired.”

“You mean you thought I’d been retired. They tried it. Lucifer and his minions. They could pull me off the main part of the river, but I’m still the Styx’s boatman. No one gets past me without paying.”

“But you’re alone down here,” Vehuel says. “Doesn’t that defeat the point of being a boatman?”

“Not at all. I am as patient as the river. And as for being alone . . .”

He looks at the long line of vehicles beginning to fill the tunnel.

“I don’t seem to be alone anymore.”

“Very well,” says Vehuel. “We’d like—”

“Shh,” he says, holding up a hand. “I’m trying to count.”

“Of course,” Vehuel says in a tone that makes it pretty obvious she’s not used to getting shushed.

The Magistrate steps forward.

“Hello. I am—”

Charon holds up a finger.

“You made me lose count. Now I have to start over.”

“I can tell you how many are in our party, if that would help.”

“It wouldn’t. I have to count. You might try to cheat me.”

“We travel with angels, sir. We would never cheat you.”

“Shh.”

Charon waggles his finger as he counts people or vehicles or maybe both. Whatever he’s counting, it’s clear it’s going to take a while. I get out the Maledictions. Daja and Wanuri take one. I bring one over to Gisco and start to light it.

“There’s no smoking,” says Charon sharply. “Read the sign.”

I look around.

“What sign?”

He looks at the wall over my head.

“Oh yes. I thought I hadn’t seen it for a while. It must have rotted away in the damp. Anyway—no smoking. Now quiet or I’ll have to start over again.”

Everyone gives me back their cigarettes. Alice hops onto the back of the Charger and I sit down next to her.

“He’s fun. One of yours?”

“I’m not sure,” she whispers. “He could be an angel, I guess. He’s kind of a prick if he is.”

“Then he’s more like most of the angels I’ve met. Your bunch are the weird ones.”

“I’m glad we could broaden your horizons. You don’t want to know what a lot of angels say about you.”