Hell on High Page 17

  She dried herself, savoring the big fluffy towel, another one of life's little pleasures that humans took for granted. There were so many.

  She didn't know what to wear. It depended on where they ended up. Jeans and a blouse should be sufficient for anything Jack was likely to throw at her, unless they ended up at the beach, then she would want shorts. She considered a moment; she knew white shorts were a special weakness of his, and it wasn't like the cold would affect her, even if they ended up on top of a mountain—she took a pair and wriggled into them. She contemplated and rejected a bra—she didn't have to be Ms. Responsible Corporate Citizen today—and picked a red blouse which she tied at the bottom, leaving her midriff bare. If they were going sightseeing then she wanted to be the best sight Jack saw. She slipped a bathing suit into her purse and grabbed a pair of sandals. She was ready for whatever he could throw at her.

  Her nose twitched as she approached the kitchen. She distinctly smelled maple syrup over hot pecan waffles. "Good morning, Remmy," she called as she stepped through the arch from the hallway.

  The big angel stopped with the fork halfway to his mouth. "Oh, hi, Av-er... Rhea," he said. Across the table from him, Miramuel put down the morning paper and grinned sourly. A pot of grits bubbled on the stove.

  "Remmy," Rhea said, "do you know how much real maple syrup costs?"

  Remufel considered. "Not much, on your salary," he said.

  And that was true enough, she had to admit. "And y'all have made a habit of breakfast now?" she asked.

  "Well, perhaps Remmy has," Miramuel answered. "I stay abreast of the world's happenings, and work at this puzzle of word crosses."

  "That's not true, Rhea," Remmy said, "she always has a glass of grapefruit juice, too."

  "And if I do?" Miramuel retorted, "At least I don't stuff myself like you." She turned to Rhea. "You're here so seldom lately, Rhea. The newspaper is a poor replacement for talking with you."

  Rhea raised her hands. "I know, I know," she said. "We've been over that, and I still won't be spending much time here until you can promise you won't meddle with my love life. Besides, I read the paper too, when I have time. I don't think you're spending the whole day vegetating in my kitchen; there's been too much good news."

  Both angels looked positively guilty. They gave each other fascinating furtive glances. Rhea looked away, not wanting her face to tip them off to her sudden suspicion: Remufel and Miramuel weren't supposed to be parked in her kitchen. They weren't supposed to be running around doing good deeds. In fact, she wondered if they were supposed to be in contact with her at all.

  Their presence didn't fit with anything The Hallowed Busybody had done since the day He turned the Hellraised loose in North Carolina, and if she'd been thinking more clearly, she would have realized that a lot earlier. Devils, demons, imps, gargoyles, gremlins, leccubi and fallen angels... the state was up to its armpits in them. But actual archangels from Upstairs... nope. As far as she had been able to tell—and she had plenty of experience with spotting the forces from the other side—not a single angel had manifested as a physical presence in the state in the entire time she'd been on Earth. Not one.

  Until Remmy and Mir showed up in her kitchen.

  She turned back to her guests and said, "Folks, I've got to be going. I'll see you when I see you."

  "Rhea," Remmy called after her as she went out the door, "what do I do with these grits?"

  "You eat them with milk and sugar," she yelled back, "just like cream of wheat."

  She spent her entire trip to Jack's trying to figure out what angle Mir and Remmy were working. What in Heaven was going on? Or more to the point, what was going on in Heaven?

  Chapter 49

  Gabriel would have been more than happy to ask Rhea the same question, had he known she was asking it. Not for the reasons he would have predicted when the Glorious One took off in search of the perfect wave, or whatever it was he was doing.

  To Gabriel's surprise, almost all the archangels had pitched in from the start. In that first emergency meeting, they'd debated the merits of keeping God's little vacation a secret, but they hadn't been able to find any real merits—other than avoiding a general panic—and they'd decided that they'd do a lot better if everyone in all the Heavens knew what was going on and knew that Eternity was being run—temporarily, of course—by amateurs.

  To Gabriel's even further surprise, there hadn't even been a general panic. Just about everyone in all the Heavens thought the Almighty was due for a bit of time off, and in that we're-all-in-this-together way common Upstairs, had divvied up chores and rallied round in a chin-up, stiff-upper lip way that was positively British.

  In Valhalla, the Teutonic lesser deities had put Wagner's Ring Cycle on endless replay and revved up mead production in the Heroes Halls, and now everyone was getting a regular supply of some extraordinary mead; the Catholic sector of Christian Heaven was loaning out a lot of its not-so-well-known saints to the other sectors of the afterlife for emergency prayer request duty; the Buddhists and the eclectic pagans had gone together on a clever training and orientation group for newly arrived souls that also doubled as a briefing group for their folks' souls which were headed back down—an elegant and economical solution, and very popular throughout the Heavens, though a bit of a shock to those arriving souls who were destined for nonreincarnating sectors.

  Mostly, everyone had been creative, supportive, and wonderful. Mostly, everyone was wondering why God hadn't taken a vacation long ago. Mostly.

  And then there were the problems. The few rabble-rousers who wanted to complain; the occasional mislaid prayers; the afterlife assignments that somehow went astray...

  And two AWOL archangels who'd disappeared twenty-four hours after God went on vacation, and who hadn't resurfaced yet.

  Gabriel had been able to track their energy to North Carolina, but hadn't been able to pin them down any more definitely than that. They were shielding themselves, and somehow seemed to be linked to Hellish influences, and they seemed to be involving themselves in human affairs. He got one or two memos per day of Hellish plans foiled by "supernatural means—unmarked angel in vicinity."

  He kept hoping they'd get back before the Holy of Holies returned... but as the weeks dragged on, he was beginning to give up hope. And what God was going to say about angels AWOL and without orders right in the midst of His big Hell experiment, when all along His Perfection had maintained a policy of absolute nonintervention... well, Gabriel didn't want to think about it. He'd heard the lectures on interfering with mortal free will. Over and over and over, he'd heard them. That interference was what caused the First Rift.

  He hoped there wasn't going to be a second.

  Chapter 50

  Jack's gargoyle looked positively gaunt to Rhea. The creature gave her a listless wave as she went under the carport.

  Her key slid smoothly into the lock and the back door swung easily on its hinges—Jack had fixed it after the second time she was locked out. Apparently in consequence, his microwave had gone on the blink and would now run only for two minutes and twenty-two seconds at a time.

  Jack was in the living room, apportioning miscellaneous picnic paraphernalia between different bags and whistling Roger Whitaker's "New World in the Morning." He started as he heard her come up behind him. "Oh! Hi, Rhea." He glanced at his watch. "Right on time, I see." He did a double take as her outfit registered, then he did a long, slow inspection, starting at her toes and working upwards.

  "Do I pass?" she asked.

  "You know you do," he said, and hugged her, holding her close enough that she could feel the hard truth behind his words. She reached down and pinched.

  He pinched back, but said, "Uh, uh, time for dessert later. First help me get this stuff out in the car, and then let's hit the road."

  Rhea grabbed a bag and smiled at the fresh smells of bread and tortilla chips. "Where are we going?" she asked.

  Jack fanned a pair of tickets in front of her face. "It
took a bit of work to get these," he said. "It's not like Disney World. They don't let so many people in each day that it gets intolerable. We're going to Devil's Point."

  The smile froze on Rhea's face. Oh, just great. The one place in North Carolina I least want to go. The place with the highest concentration of Unchained. She looked at Jack's face. He was grinning with triumph—those tickets really were hard to get. And certainly it would be the last place any of her pursuers would expect her to go. She tightened her shields. "That's wonderful," she said.

  Chapter 51

  Jack had his reasons for going to Devil's Point, but the drive with Rhea would have been enough. The four-hour trip from the Triangle to Pender County was passing all too quickly. He had all the windows down as the faithful Camry negotiated the back roads towards the coast. It was a beautiful day, and the stereo was blaring through a special tape of traveling music he'd put together. Rhea had seemed a bit uncertain at first, but now she chatted easily as they made happy talk about nothing in particular. He told a few more stories from his childhood and she laughed appreciatively. He'd given up asking about her past. From the number of times she'd slid away from the subject, and the way she had never mentioned her parents in any context, he'd concluded that maybe she had been an abused child.

  I'd like a few minutes alone with anyone who laid a finger on her. It was an ugly thought, and he pushed it aside with the story of how his father had climbed the big pine tree to string an antenna for Jack's first crystal radio, and had gotten stuck.

  "So after the hook and ladder were dispatched," he said, "it got out on the police band somehow that he was going to jump. A news crew showed up then. He'd had the antenna wire fastened through his belt loop so he wouldn't have to hold it while he climbed. When the big branch broke it got caught in the wire, and he had to shuck his pants to keep from going with it. So he's up here in this tree in his underwear, on live TV with firemen scurrying around below wrecking my mother's garden, and newsmen yelling up questions about his motive. Then my grandmother shows up, hysterical, to talk him out of jumping. Then Mom and the rest of us get home from the mall and can't park closer than a block from home..." Jack stopped for a moment as he passed a huge Cadillac land yacht going about forty. Naturally a man with a hat was driving.

  "So what happened?" Rhea prompted.

  Jack shrugged. "Oh, not much," he said. "The firemen put up a ladder and Dad climbed down. Then he went over to the news crew and told them that if they weren't off his property in one minute, he would shoot them for trespassing, and that if they couldn't believe that from a suicidal man in his underwear, who could they believe it from? He took Grandma inside and got her quieted down, hugged Mom really hard, then looked at me and told me something I've never forgotten.

  "'Son,' he said, 'for two dollars I can buy you a better radio than you'll ever build. And next time you get the two bucks!' Then he hugged me too."

  "He sounds like a neat man," Rhea said.

  "He is," Jack agreed. "Just don't ever call him Pinetop Halloran."

  Traffic picked up as they neared Devil's Point. As he'd told Rhea, the number of people allowed in each day was carefully regulated, but even the Unchained couldn't build a hundred square miles of amusement park and not have urban sprawl blight the surrounding area. Still, the roads had been carefully reworked to handle the flow, and the signs marking the way to the entrances were well laid out. Jack had no trouble getting past the inevitable religious protesters and finding a place in the vast parking lot. He grabbed the picnic bags from the trunk, hesitated a moment, then added a small Super-Soaker to one of them. This should be the perfect place to try it. If something went wrong again, at least he wouldn't have the fallout of his mistake wreaking havoc in his office. They walked over to the tramway and caught a tram to the main gate. Or almost to the main gate—there was a state police checkpoint in front of it.

  "I hadn't heard about this," Jack told Rhea.

  "From what I've heard, it makes sense," she said.

  They got in the long line threading past the checkpoint. A bored-looking trooper sitting at a folding table looked up and handed each of them a sheet of paper. "Read and sign this," she told them.

  Jack looked. The sheet read:

  Due to the unusual circumstances surrounding the area known as Devil's Point, it has proven impossible for any Federal, State or local authority to enforce its laws within the area, to provide any emergency medical services to the area, or to guarantee the safety of people within the area in any way.

  Although this notice does not constitute any waiver of sovereignty, and no passport is required, your entry into the Devil's Point area is essentially equivalent to entering a foreign country, and your signature absolves all State, Federal and local government and private entities from any liability that may result from your entry into the area, and forswears any legal action that you or your heirs may bring against those entities for events that transpire while you are inside.

  "Boy," Jack said, "you're not pulling any punches are you?"

  The trooper shrugged. "No one's making you go in," she said.

  "Have you been in?"

  "Yeah," she admitted. "I'm not allowed to give you my opinion while I'm on duty, though."

  "Well, we know at least one person came out, then," Rhea said. She hesitated a moment, then signed her sheet with a flourish.

  Actually, it was more like tens of thousands of people, Jack reflected as he signed his. Going into Devil's Point appeared to be much safer than driving a car. There were rumors on the Internet about a section called Desire's Point, but everything else was as clean and wholesome as Disney World, or as wholesome as a Disney World with fetish and sex-change shops anyway. The line moved on and he and Rhea passed through the main gate.

  Jack didn't know what he had expected, exactly; he'd seen pictures, but nothing really prepared him for the impact. The people in front of him were even less prepared—he almost ran into them as they stopped dead in their tracks. The park laid out under the crystal sky was exquisite. The walkways and buildings were as scrupulously clean as Disney World, but there was no similar feeling of a jumble of styles—everything seemed to have been conceived as a single organic whole, and this despite the fact that a fourteen-story castle towered over clusters of modern buildings and a monorail circled silently beyond. He saw several artists set up off to the side, sketching and painting intently. Devil's Point was a masterwork of architecture and landscaping that put to rest the old claim about Hell's lack of creativity—perhaps it was meant to.

  Apparently that first look wasn't having quite the same effect on Rhea that it had on him. She looked around quickly, almost furtively, then grabbed his arm. "Come on, Jack," she said, "it's lunchtime." She pulled one of the courtesy maps from the stand by the front gate, and guided Jack away from the crowd that was still milling about, deciding where to go first.

  The monorail track rode elegantly between cleanly sculpted support pillars, some of which were also boarding stations. They took an elevator to the top of the closest station, and waited until one of the small fleet of trains glided to a silent stop. The doors on the far side slid open and a little cluster of people debarked—the train rising slightly as the load dropped.

  "Is that maglev?" Jack asked, intrigued. "There are a lot of people still trying to make that work."

  "All of whom have now ridden on this train several times, I'm sure," Rhea observed as the doors on their side opened and they stepped inside. "Probably with as much sensing equipment as they could carry."

  He could barely feel the acceleration as the train eased away from the station. "Impressive," he admitted, "but we've got it beat."

  Rhea squeezed his arm. "Believe it!" she said.

  The train traveled counterclockwise, out over an impossibly wide beach strewn with sparkling white sand. The Atlantic lapped at the edge. Further back, he could see water slides, wave pools and a lagoon with miniature tall ships tacking back and forth. One ocean-side
section was set off with high dunes and palmetto trees.

  "What's that?" he asked, pointing. Rhea followed his glance and squinted slightly.

  "Nude beach," she reported. "Maybe I can do some comparison shopping later, hmm?"

  Jack felt himself flush. He'd been working out at the Y a little lately, when he could fit it in with everything else, but he didn't think he was quite ready for prime time. He sucked in his stomach and sat up straighter. "Sure," he said, "but remember—you'll never go wrong with a name brand."

  "You've cornered that market," Rhea reassured him. She pointed out the other side of the train. "Oh, look at that!"

  That was a huge structure that seemed to be three long wings connected by a single cross-corridor. "It looks like the five-speed shift diagram for my Camry," Jack observed. "What is it?"

  Rhea consulted her map. "It's the Library of Lost Books," she said and showed him the schematic. "Everything from Neolithic cave paintings in first gear to lost classics of the 1980s in fifth."

  "That leaves reverse," Jack said. "What's there?"

  Rhea looked at her map. "It doesn't say. Something appropriate, I hope. Great lost texts of post-modern deconstructionism, perhaps."

  The monorail glided to a stop over a verdant swath of rolling hills set with picture-postcard shade trees, brooks and ponds. "Picnic park," Rhea said. "All ashore that's going ashore."

  Considering that the whole trip was his plan, Rhea seemed to be finding her way around a lot better than he was, Jack reflected as they rode the elevator down.

  Lunch was perfect. They sat under an ancient live oak on the bank of a crystal brook. Spanish moss stirred lazily in the hint of breeze, and cloud shadows crisscrossed the grassy expanse of the park, accenting the sunshine like black pearls among the white. Although Jack knew they couldn't really be alone, no other picnickers were visible. Apparently in Devil's Point you only had as much company as you wanted. He spread out the heavy paper picnic cloth and set out the food.