“You were a naval commander?”
The ferret appeared to whisper into Bob’s hat (since Bob no longer had ears).
“She says no, she misunderstood, she thought you meant horn blower.”
“She was a prostitute?”
“Cornet _layer,” said Bob.
“Sorry,” Charlie said. “It’s the boots.”
The ferret waved him off in a “no worries” way, then leaned over and whispered to Bob again.
“What?” Charlie said.
“Nothing,” Bob said.
“Not nothing. I didn’t think they could talk.”
“Well, not to you,” said Bob.
“What did she say?”
“She said we’re fucked.”
“Well, that’s not a very good attitude,” Charlie said, but he was starting to believe the go-go ferret was right, and he leaned back into a semisitting position in the pipe to rest.
Bob climbed up to a smaller pipe and sat on the edge, his feet dangling over; water dripped from his little patent-leather shoes, but the floral pattern brass buckles still shone in the light of Charlie’s headlamp.
“Nice shoes,” Charlie said.
“Yeah, well, Audrey digs me,” said Bob.
Before Charlie could answer, the dog had grabbed Bob from behind and was shaking him like a rag doll. His mighty spork clattered off the pipe and was lost in the water below.
27
BITCH’S BREW
Lily had been looking all night for a way to approach Minty Fresh. She’d made eye contact with him a dozen times over the course of the evening, and smiled, but with the atmosphere of dread that fell over the room she was having trouble thinking of an opening line. Finally, when an Oprah movie of the week came on the television and everyone gathered around to watch the media diva beat Paul Winfield to death with a steam iron, Minty went to the breakfast bar and started flipping through his day planner, and Lily made her move.
“So, checking your appointments?” she said. “You must be feeling optimistic about how things will go.”
He shook his head. “Not really.”
Lily was smitten. He was beautiful and morose—like a great brown man-gift from the gods.
“How bad can it be?” Lily said, pulling the appointment book out of his hand and flipping through the pages. She stopped on today’s date.
“Why is Asher’s name in here?” she asked.
Minty hung his head. “He said you’ve known all about us for a while.”
“Yeah, but—” She looked at the name again and the realization of what she was seeing was like a punch in the chest. “This is that book? This is your date book for that?”
Minty nodded slowly, not looking at her.
“When did this name show up?” Lily asked.
“It wasn’t there an hour ago.”
“Well, fucksocks,” she said, sitting down on the bar stool next to the big man.
“Yeah,” said Minty Fresh. He put his arm around her shoulders.
With Charlie pulling on the legs of the bobcat guy (who was doing some impressive screaming considering he had prototype vocal cords) and the squirrel people dog-piling onto the Boston terrier, they were eventually able to extricate their lieutenant from the jaws of the bug-eyed fury with only a few snags in his Beefeater’s costume.
“Down, Bummer,” Charlie said. “Just chill.” He didn’t know if chill was an official dog command, but it should be.
Bummer snorted and backed away from the surrounding crowd of squirrel people.
“Not one of us,” said the bobcat guy, pointing at Bummer. “Not one of us.”
“You shut up,” Charlie said. He pulled a beef jerky from his pocket that he’d brought for emergency rations, tore off a hunk, and held it out to Bummer. “Come on, buddy. I told the Emperor I’d look out for you.”
Bummer trotted over to Charlie and took the beef jerky from him, then turned to face down the squirrel people as he chewed. The squirrel people made clicking noises and brandished their weapons. “Not one of us. Not one of us,” chanted Bob.
“Stop that,” Charlie said. “You can’t get a mob chant going, Bob, you’re the only one with a voice box.”
“Oh yeah.” Bob let his chanting trail off. “Well, he’s not one of us,” he added in his defense.
“He is now,” Charlie said. To Bummer he said, “Can you lead us to the Underworld?”
Bummer looked up at Charlie as if he knew exactly what was being asked of him, but if he was going to find the strength to carry on, he was going to need the other half of that beef jerky. Charlie gave it to him and Bummer immediately jumped up to a higher, four-foot pipe, stopped, barked, then took off down the pipe.
“Follow him,” Charlie said.
After an hour following Bummer through the sewers, the pipes gave way to tunnels that got bigger as they moved along. Soon they were moving in caves, with high ceilings and stalactites in the ceiling that glowed in various colors, illuminating their way with a dull, shadowy light. Charlie had read enough about the geology of the area to know that these caves were not natural to the city. He guessed that they were somewhere under the financial district, which was mostly built on Gold Rush landfill, so there would be nothing as old-looking or as solid as these caves.
Bummer kept on, leading them down one fork or another without the slightest hesitation, until suddenly the cave opened up into a massive grotto. The chamber was so large that it simply swallowed up Charlie’s flashlight and headlamp beams, but the ceiling, which was several hundred feet high, was lined with the luminous stalactites that reflected red, green, and purple in a mirror-smooth black lake. In the middle of the lake, probably two hundred yards away, stood a great black sailing ship—tall-masted like a Spanish galleon—red, pulsating light coming from the cabin windows in the rear, a single lantern lighting the deck. Charlie had heard that whole ships had been buried in the debris during the Gold Rush, but they wouldn’t have been left preserved like this. Things had changed, these caves were all the result of the Underworld rising—and he realized that this was just a hint of what was going to happen to the City if the Underworlders took over.
Bummer barked and the sharp report echoed around the grotto, sending a cloud of bats into the air.
Charlie saw movement on the deck of the ship, the blue-black outline of a woman, and he knew that Bummer had led them to the right place. Charlie handed his flashlight to Bob and set his sword-cane on the cave floor. He drew the Desert Eagle from the shoulder holster, checked that there was a round in the chamber, cocked the hammer, then reset the safety and reholstered the pistol.
“We’re going to need a boat,” Charlie said to Bob. “See if you guys can find something we can make a raft from.” The bobcat guy started down the shore with Charlie’s flashlight, scanning the rocks for useful flotsam. Bummer growled, tossed his head like he had ear mites or perhaps to indicate that he thought Charlie was insane, and ran out into the lake. Fifty yards away he was still only in water up to his shoulder.
Charlie looked at the black ship and realized that it was sitting way, way too high out of the water—that, in fact, it was sitting with its hull on the bottom in only about six inches of water.
“Uh, Bob,” Charlie said. “Forget the boat. We’re walking. Everyone quiet.” He unsheathed his sword and sloshed onward. As they approached the ship they could make out details in its construction. The railings were fashioned from leg bones lashed together, the mooring cleats were human pelvises. The lantern on the deck was, in fact, a human skull. Charlie wasn’t exactly sure how his powers as Luminatus were going to manifest themselves, but as they reached the hull of the ship he found himself very much wishing it would happen soon, and that levitation would be one of the powers.