Page 46 of Midnight in the Garden of Okay and Meh
“I can’t. I shouldn’t be here to begin with, but I couldn’t resist seeing Desislav again. You’ll have to do the heavy lifting, I’m afraid. There are waterproof headlamps for both of you. Oh yes, the orange air canisters are really mini breathing devices. I got them in the Seychelles. Really quite handy things to have. You just pop that end into your mouth, and you’ll have ten minutes of air.”
“Why didn’t I think to have Aisling get me a wet suit when she got Parisi hers?” Jim asked as it snuffled the breathing tube. Parisi quickly stripped down to her skivvies before donning a black-and-yellow wet suit. “My coat is going to dry all funky, I just know it.”
“I have about an hour left. I hate to hurry you, but ...” Mabel let her sentence trail off, and moved back to the stairs to wait.
Sally showed Parisi how to use the breathing device, then turned to Jim. She strapped onto him first a headlamp, then the breathing device before turning on the flow of air. It bobbed its head a few times in an indication it could breathe before it followed Parisi into the inky water.
“That water really does not look right,” Sally murmured to herself as the pair disappeared under the water, the plume of Jim’s tail the last thing she saw.
“How is water not right?” Mabel asked, looking up from her phone.
“It’s ... just wrong. But so fitting with the place, don’t you think? Whoever designed it deserves an award.” Sally looked around with approval for whoever was in charge of the Hour’s appearance. “I mean, if you’re going to make a place of ultimate suffering inside a place known for its endless torment, you’re going to need it to be something special. And this is definitely out of the norm.”
Mabel stared at her in obvious horror. “Are you insane? This is the hellish hell version of the ultimate hell, and you admire the decor?”
“Of course. Even evil needs recognition.” Sally smiled at the reaper, but Mabel continued to look horrified and scooted a bit farther away.
Sally sighed to herself and made a mental note to tell Terrin about the latest drama with the dragons. She had a feeling he would be more than a little peeved with her, but she always found that to be one of his charms, and settled in to wait for the submariners to return.
THIRTEEN
Diary of Effrijim, Demon Sixth Class
As if it’s not hard enough to know that your own mom doesn’t recognize you—although to be fair, I didn’t recognize her, either, not that I would because she left a couple of days after I was born—but then you find out your dad was one of the most feared beings in the history of the Otherworld, and it kinda wallops you.
I knew I had to help my mom even if she didn’t remember me because she’d been stuck in the Beyond for so long, but man alive, I never thought I’d go scuba diving to do it. And yet, as I dove under the black—and surprisingly warm—water, the headlight illuminating a few yards in front of us, I had no idea just what we’d find.
Let me tell you what we found—a whole crap ton of scary.
We didn’t see the bodies until we swam down for half a minute; then all of a sudden Parisi’s headlight caught the foot of a body floating upside down. It was enough to give me the willies, although that ramped up when, as I swam closer to the body, it twisted, the bound hands flailing as the man turned to face me. He opened his mouth in what was probably a scream and tried to grab at me in a scissor move with his legs.
He just got one of his legs around my torso before I could move away, and was pulling me toward him, his hold like iron, when all of a sudden I was jerked backward, and Parisi was there, waving her sword at the guy. He continued to silent scream at us, and at a gesture from her, I followed really close to her as we swam forward another ten yards or so before she suddenly pointed upward and started to ascend.
I was right on her heels, and when we broke the surface of the water, I made it to the shore in record dog-paddling time.
“Fires of Abaddon,” I said, coughing a little at a near intake of water into my lungs as I spat out the breathing-device mouthpiece. “That was the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, and I worked in Abaddon for more than four hundred years.”
“So the Upside-Down Sinners thing wasn’t just an atmospheric name?” Mabel asked as Parisi likewise took off her breathing thing and sank down onto the floor, staring at nothing.
“Yeah,” I answered, and looked at Sally, trying to tell if she knew what was in the lake. On the whole, I had a feeling she did, even if she hadn’t ever seen it for herself. “It looks like they’re chained by their hands to the floor. I don’t know how many there are, but one of them tried to grab me with his legs, so we got out of there.”
“I believe the last count is one thousand three hundred twenty-seven sinners,” Sally said, pursing her lips as I shook off the water that was trying to get through my undercoat.
“Jeezumcrow,” Mabel murmured, her eyes huge.
“That’s not the worst.” I wondered if I had cell reception in the Hour. I thought not, but I had a sudden urge to call Aisling and tell her a dead guy grabbed me, but that my mom had saved me. “They’re alive down there. Just floating, but they can scream. Kind of. At least, I think that was a scream. What do you think?” I asked the last bit of Parisi, who gave a little shudder and looked up.
“Yes. They are very much alive. I didn’t realize there were so many of them. I don’t know what this Destroyer person looks like. I assume you don’t know, either?” she asked me.
“Nope.” We both turned to Sally.
“I’m sorry, I can’t go in the lake. That’s a hard-line no,” she told us, but, after a moment’s thought, added, “He is a demigod, though. Parisi, you should be able to feel the power surrounding him. That’s what I’d suggest you look for ... someone who feels like dark power. Lots of it.”
She didn’t look thrilled with the idea, but I’ll give my mom this: she held to her promises. She stood up and picked up my breathing apparatus, strapping it onto my head. “I’ll do my best, although this is not at all the sort of saving I had imagined. I normally fight body to body with swords and daggers and my lovely pair of pearl-handled ladies’ beheading axes. I like the axes.”
“As do I. There’s nothing more satisfying than a really well-balanced beheading axe, especially if you get a good swing going, but honestly, you don’t have anything to worry about the lack of physical combat,” Sally said with the tiniest of smiles. “You’ll have more than enough action trying to get Desi out of here. And speaking of that, I’d like to be done before Sasha tattles to Terrin that we’re actually in the Hour at this moment, so onward, mes braves!”
“If I don’t come back up, tell Ash to give me a half hour to get the perfect Newfie form in mind before she summons me,” I told Sally.
