size zero. You don't get any leaner. Well, perhaps there are a few fashion models who do, but they're on a fast track to this place. The world's gone to fat, particularly the bits of it that exist on the back of the other bits. When did you last go hungry, Mr. de Selby?'
I shrug. I'm starving now, in fact. I can't remember the last time I ate.
Charon isn't one for silence, I suppose he gets plenty of it. 'Yes, well, you'd know if you ever really had-'
'So how do I get back?' This could go on for a while.
'Hmm, it was you who interrupted me.' He frowns. 'I had a peek at your dossier. It's highly unusual for you, but these are highly unusual times. The Negotiation is going to be very interesting, I think, more interesting than any of those dickheads upstairs expect.' He pulls a packet of Winnie Blues from his pocket and picks out a cigarette. 'Want one?'
'I don't smoke. Not when I'm sober, anyway.'
The Boatman grimaces. 'C'mon, this is the Deepest Dark. Indulge yourself.'
I shake my head, and he puts them away. 'Let me tell you though, you will-and sober too, that's a total one hundred percent prophecy-or maybe you won't. Now, back to the question. You don't leave-'
'I have to. I have to get out of here, there's unfinished business.'
'Funny, I meet a lot of people who say that here. It's as though life owes you a neat ending,' Charon says flatly. 'And once again you interrupt. You don't leave, not all of you. You have to leave something of yourself behind.'
'I'd not heard of that condition.'
'Probably forgotten. It's been a while since anyone's done this-kudos to you on that, too, boyo. Think about it, even The Orpheus left something of himself when he tried to escape the Underworld.'
'Eurydice,' says Wal somewhat irrelevantly.
'Yes, your little arm face is right. Though obviously back in the day, Hell was all about cruel and unusual punishment. The Orpheus left his heart behind and so do you.'
The Boatman coughs, and thumps his chest with a bony hand. The sound echoes loudly in every direction, booming back at us. I imagine that whatever beats beneath those ribs, if it beats at all, is dusty and ancient and probably needs the occasional jolt.
'Well, not exactly your heart,' he says, once he gets his breath back. 'I'm obviously getting metaphorical, you know, figuratively speaking. The Orpheus looked back. It saved his life though, because I can tell you if he hadn't left Eurydice behind he wouldn't have gotten back himself. The fellow was far too cocky.'
'Cold comfort though, isn't it?' I say.
'This is Hell, this is the flaming capital of cold comfort, mate.' The Boatman looks down at his feet. He's wearing rubber thongs. They're huge, but his feet overhang them by a good three or so inches, and his long toes end in nails painted black. He crouches, picks at something beneath a toenail. 'Besides, if you go back, what are you going back into? That blocked artery is still going to be there, or that embolism. It's a revolving door for most people. Even Deaths aren't afforded the privilege of immortality, just a very, very long existence. Until Schism time, that is. That's how Deaths work.'
I'm not in the mood for a long lecture. 'Can I nominate what stays behind?'
'No.' Charon lifts from the crouch and looms over me, bending down to regard me with eyes dark and dangerous. 'Crikey, that's just being cheeky.'
I hold his bleak gaze. 'So it can be anything?'
'Yes.'
'Like, say, the left ventricle of my heart?'
'Always getting back to the heart. You're heart-centric. There are a lot of other organs that are essential now, aren't there? And, each of them, including the heart, would be covered under the word 'anything,' though it would hardly be in the spirit of the deal. Look, it's a risk. But we can't have the living, not even Pomps, coming here and expecting it to be easy.'
'I never expected it to be easy.' The truth is, I hadn't really had a clue about what to expect or, until Mr. D gave me the option, that it would be possible.
'You're in the Underworld, Steven. You're not on The Price is Right, or jumping a fence.' He scratches his head. 'Well, it's exactly like both, only the price of losing is death-the fence is fatally electric, probably has skulls painted all over it, or it's made out of skulls.'
Wal looks up at me, and rolls his eyes. 'You've got to hope for the best, mate,' he says. His little wings flutter in that disturbing way that scrapes the bones beneath my flesh.
'Yeah,' I say, 'because everything's been working out well so far.'
'You sent Lissa back, didn't you? And you're still alive-well, sort of, if we ignore technicalities.' I look down at him, unmoved. 'The other option, of course, is that you stay here,' Wal huffs.
'In that regard,' Charon says, rubbing his long hands together, 'we can be very accommodating. I'm much happier bringing people here than taking them back. It seems wrong. In fact, it doesn't just seem wrong, it is wrong. That whole natural order of things, you know.'
He's right. There's no point in arguing. I nod my head. 'OK. Send me back, take what you will.'
He grins. 'That's my job. Now, you know the deal.'
'The giving up something?'
'No, the other one.'
'Which is?'
'Don't look back… and run.'
And I want to argue the logic of that. After all, we just spoke about The Orpheus and his looking back, but it's too late. Charon claps his hands, once. There is a deep booming sound that reverberates through my body so that I feel as though I'm some sort of living bell.
Charon's gone.
The air feels and smells different, at once fresher and fouler. The scent of newly turned dirt. A warm breeze blows against my skin. Then all that's gone and I'm walking down a metal corridor lit with the blue lights of the Underworld, my footfalls ringing loudly. I'm not walking toward the light, but through the light.
I can smell doughnuts again, then something like burning tires.
'What do you reckon, Wal?' My voice carries uncertainly through the air.
The cherub is remarkably silent. I consider staring at my arm, but I'm not exactly sure what constitutes looking back. These rules can be extremely loose and terribly precise.
Then something chuckles, and it's not Wal.
I remember Charon's other advice. I run all right. The Underworld never lets you get too casual with it. I put on as much speed as I can, but it doesn't seem to do any good.
I run through hot and cold spaces, wet and dry. The air alternately clings to me or pushes. This is the edge of life and death, both forces are tugging at me, even as I go. I'm hoping for some sort of tidal shift, that life will start to grow more potent, and soon.
There are noises. Liquid, horrible noises, and scurryings, and more laughter.
The blue lights flicker.
I know not to look back, but that laughing… Something is drawing nearer, every footfall louder than the last one, every step faster than my own, and I'm no longer running, but sprinting, crashing down the hallway. Strobing blue lights line the walls. It's as though I'm racing down a long, halogen-lit disco, only whatever is behind me is more terrible than anything a disco ever produced.
It slobbers and howls. For a moment I think of Cerberus, the Hound of Hell, but then it's cackling, and dragging bones or bells along the ground.
I want to look back. I want to know what it is that will have me, to see if I've actually put any distance between us. The want is burning a hole between my shoulders, my skin is tight. The hairs on the back of my neck rise. But I keep my head down, keep sprinting until the tendons in my legs tear, until the muscles in my flesh burn.
And then I trip over, and I'm sliding on the floor.
It's on top of me and over me, and it's sliding into me, crashing into my mouth, my ears, my pores.
I don't scream until I'm back in the tower, but by then it's too late. I'm standing woozily, naked and blood- stained in the cold.
