He’s not kidding. I’m one bad pothole away from telling Elephant Man to turn around and head us back into the fire. The river ahead is a thick, crawling torrent of swirling blood and shit. Downtown’s sewers have to empty out somewhere. Why not in the middle of no-goddam-where? And why not put a road through it to keep Lucifer’s traitors in and curious morons out? Like the fire, we have no choice of where to go. We head straight into Puke Swamp. I’m on the edge of vomiting up everything I ever ate since childhood, strained peas to chicken and waffles. Damn. Wrong memories. My stomach starts doing a hillbilly two-step. I think of Candy but she makes me think of sex and rolling, moving, and tumbling over furniture. My gut tells me to move along. I look ahead and concentrate on the trees. Dark branches dripping with emerald green parasites. My insides cool off and settle back about where they’re supposed to be.
Elephant Man slows, losing sight of the road in the brown bog.
“Off to the left,” I tell him. “Follow the roots of the big tree up ahead and in between the two little ones.”
He nods, picking up the outlines.
Geryon looks like I feel. He’s slumped in his seat, his head between his knees. Even the fish-store-stinking soldiers are having a bad time of it.
I didn’t sign up for any of this, but at worst I always thought being the Devil would be at least a little fun. Shooting BBs at Hitler as he tightrope walks over a lake of boiling lemon juice and broken glass. Playing Pin the Tail on the Stalin. After lunch, maybe a few rounds of Ted Bundy Whac-A-Mole. Instead I get a literal river of shit. What’s the old saying, “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions?” This one is paved, carpeted, and wallpapered with skin off my sore ass.
We’re halfway across the river when Elephant Man pulls to a stop.
I say, “What is it?”
He stretches up and looks over the Unimog’s hood.
Geryon stands too and says the words I was hoping I’d never hear.
“We’re stuck.”
Lucifer, you motherfucker, you must be looking down at us from Heaven and laughing your holy ass off. I swear someday I’ll make you surf this river from end to end.
I pull up the handle and open the door. Geryon grabs my arm.
“What are you doing?”
“We need to get out and push.”
His forehead creases as he stares at me. “Pushing is what the soldiers in the back are for. Not the Lord of the Underworld.”
“You said I’m not the Lord.”
“For the moment you represent him.”
“Good. Until you come up with another Lucifer, it’s my kingdom and my rules. Let’s go.”
He gives me a shocked smile. Spreads his hands.
“I’m a scholar, not a slave.”
“You can get out and help or I’ll throw you out and you can swim to Mordor, Frodo.”
I lean into the rear compartment where the soldiers are.
“Come on, kids. Time to pat your feet on the Mississippi mud.”
Grumbling, they hustle out the back.
“Go find some big branches to put under the wheels.”
How do you describe standing knee-deep in the evil shit of an evil bunch of bastards? It’s unique. Warm and with unexpected bits of floating things that I don’t want to think about. The drowned carcasses of little winged lizards that pass for Hellion pigeons. My biggest fear is tripping on a hidden root. I don’t want to go facedown in this muck. There isn’t enough penicillin in the world to save me from the badass microbes living in this chocolate oatmeal outhouse.
Geryon is doing even worse than I am. He’s frozen by the side of the truck, turning around and around in horrified circles like he’s trying to stomp shit into wine. He only moves when soldiers arrive with tree limbs and push him out of the way so they can wedge them under the back tires.
“How are you doing, Geryon?”
He doesn’t answer. Just stands with his arms crossed in front of him, watching the soldiers try to pry the wheels from the sludge.
“Why don’t you tell me more about Henoch?”
He can’t answer. Geryon is gone. I might have broken him.
Something moves past my leg.
“Hey. Didn’t you say one of the monsters out here was a kind of snake?”
He looks at me blankly, and then nods.
“Why do you ask?” he says. Then disappears, yanked below the surface by something underneath.
A dozen nearby soldiers drop the branches they’ve been maneuvering and pull their sidearms, firing blind into the river.
“Stop!”
It takes a few seconds but they do.
“Feel with your feet. Use your hands. Find him.”
They’re not happy but the only Lucifer they know just gave them an order. Instead of rebelling and stringing me up like Il Duce’s corpse, they do what I say, reaching under the muck and feeling for Geryon.
Elephant Man, still above us in the truck, points and grunts.
A round hump breaks the surface of the river. Six soldiers reach down to grab it. They pull out one end of what looks more like a fat ten-foot earthworm than a snake. The snake is blind but its jaws are wide and round, like a lion-toothed lamprey. A few feet down from the head, the snake’s body is wrapped around Geryon’s waist.
“Grab him. That’s an order.”
This time no one gives a good goddam what Lucifer has to say. They’re too busy firing their pistols at the snake’s head. They’re hitting it too, with what should be kill shots. Maybe the thing really is more like a worm than a snake, because for all the hits it’s not going down. This thing must have the nervous system of a chicken burrito.
I grab the na’at from inside my coat, extend it into a spear, and shove it into the snake’s body a couple of feet above Geryon. The snake whips around in my directions and takes a couple of blind nips at the air like it’s not sure where the wound came from.
I twist the na’at’s grip and it goes slack. I flick it out like a whip and it goes around the snake’s body twice. Twist the grip again and the na’at is as rigid as plate steel. The whip loops dig deep into the snake’s flesh, drawing a dirty white ribbon of pus-like blood. It screams and lunges for the soldiers. They keep firing and I keep pulling. Its neck twists to the side as I cut through its thick jelly-like flesh. Geryon is holding onto the snake’s body, trying to keep his head above the filthy river. I dig in my feet and give one last, hard pull. The snake stiffens and lets out a piercing scream that’s like getting an ice pick through my ears. And its head slides off the body, trailing luminous insides into the muck. I reach down and pull Geryon to his feet.
“Nice job, St. Francis. Were you trying to romance that thing?”
Back at the truck I help him up and Elephant Man pulls him inside.
The troops are all looking at me. I don’t know if it’s because they’re impressed or because they’ve never seen their boss covered in enough shit to fertilize all the weed fields in Humboldt County. I put the na’at back in my coat and say, “Get those branches and your asses in gear so we can get out of here.”
Fifteen minutes later we’re moving again. A couple of minutes after that we crest a hill and it starts to rain. Shit streams off the windshield. I roll my window and stick my head outside, letting the water wash my face clean.
Geryon pulls his hands from his filthy face and quietly says, “Oh no.”
“What?”
“It’s the last ring. Regret.”
Yes, I was stupid enough to think being Lucifer would be just a little fun.
The troops have the rear door open. Some lean out and others jump, running along behind the truck and letting the rain wash them clean. Other soldiers pull them back in, then jump out to take their place.
