I say, “This Nazi Disneyland stuff, it’s too cheap and easy. It’s like something the Kissi would dream up.”
That’s hitting below the belt. Calling a Hellion a Kissi is like calling Chuck Norris Joseph Stalin. Buer looks like he wants to stuff the blueprints down my throat with a road flare. Obyzuth and Semyazah look at me like they caught me eating cookies before dinner. Marchosias raises her eyebrows, which is about an inch from her challenging me to a duel at dawn.
The Bad Dad thing usually works. Hellions are big on pecking orders and I have to remind them regularly who’s at the top. Now they need a pat on the head from Good Dad before things go all Hansel and Gretel and I end up in the oven.
“You’re a talented guy, Buer. You get to redesign all of Pandemonium for the first time in about a billion years. No one’s going to get a chance like that again. Throw out the Albert Speer bullshit and modern up. When God tossed you fallen bastards into Hell the builders were the only ones who saw it as more than a pile of rocks and dust. Do that again.”
I can’t believe I’m learning how politics and court intrigue work. I feel a little dirty. I miss punching people. It’s honest work but I don’t get to do it much these days.
Marchosias shakes her head. She’s skinny, pale, and birdlike, but her instincts are more like those of a velociraptor.
“I’m not sure. In unstable times people need comfort. They need the familiar.”
“No. They don’t. They need to see that whoever’s in charge has balls and vision. They need to see that we’re making a new, bigger, and better Hell than they ever had before.”
Obyzuth nods a little to herself.
She says, “I cast the stones this morning, and although I like Buer’s work, if things must change, the signs are in an auspicious alignment for it.”
“See? We’ve got auspicious alignments and everything. We’re golden. Let’s draw up some new plans.”
I pick up a handful of little crackers from a bowl on the table and pop them one by one into my mouth. Really, they’re fried drytt eggs. Drytts are big, annoying Hellion sand fleas. I know that sounds disgusting, but this is Hell. Besides, if you fry anything long enough, it gets good. The drytt eggs go down like fried popcorn.
Semyazah hardly reacts to anything in these meetings and he chooses his words carefully. He says, “You’ve been dismissing everyone’s ideas for weeks. What ideas do you have?”
“I worry about this place ending up like L.A. All Hellion strip malls, T-shirts, and titty bars. The Pandemonium I remember is more of a Bela Lugosi–and–fog kind of town. When I have to choose between Dark Shadows or fanny packs, I’ll step over to the dark side every time. Have any of you ever seen a Fritz Lang movie called Metropolis?”
They shake their heads.
“You would love it. It’s about bigwigs that kick the shit out of proles in a city that’s all mile-high skyscrapers, smoke-belching machines, and office towers that look like dragons fucking spaceships. The place is clean, precise, and soul crushing, but with style. Just like you. So that’s everyone’s homework. Watch Metropolis. It’s in the On Demand menu.”
That’s right. Hell steals cable. Call a cop.
The three most popular TV shows Downtown are Lucha Libre, Japanese game shows, and The Brady Bunch, which Hellions seem to think is a deep anthropological study of mortal life. I hope watching the Bradys depresses them as much as being trapped here in Creation’s shit pipe depresses me.
“Let’s take a break. I need a drink.”
I walk to the bar and sit down. I make the Council hold its meetings here for a couple of reasons. The first is that Hellions love their rituals, and trying to get anything done is like a Japanese tea ceremony crossed with a High Mass, only even slower. There’s enough ritual hand waving down here to put the Dalai Lama to sleep.
Reason two is this place. It’s Hell’s version of my favorite L.A. bar, the Bamboo House of Dolls. The main difference between this and the other Bamboo House is that Carlos runs the bar in L.A. In Hell, it’s my great-great-great-granddad, Wild Bill Hickok.
Wild Bill already has a glass of Aqua Regia ready for me when I sit down.
“What do you think?” I ask.
“About what?”
“About what. About the damn meeting.”
“I think you’re about to drive them fellers crazy.”
“They’re not all fellers.”
He squints at the Council.
“There’s ladies in the bunch?”
“Two.”