“We also know all about your sister Aimee and her quest for the perfect Heaven.”
Semple, who had not spoken up to this point, decided that it was worth risking a comment. “You appear to be remarkably well informed, my Lord.”
Anubis’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Of course we’re well informed. We’re a god, aren’t we?”
Semple looked down at the floor in what she hoped was a suitably demure indication of submission to the creature’s divinity. It was too soon even to try exerting her own will; for the moment, she might as well play along with the charade of his omnipotence. She would really have liked to look at the figure in the shadows in the gray robe. Like Fat Ari and Dr. Mengele, the figure in the robe clearly had enough clout to maintain its own, thematically incorrect fantasy image, but this was hardly the time to be caught staring.
“You arrived here uninvited.”
“I’m sorry, my lord. I was unaware there were protocols governing such things.”
“It would appear that there is much of which you’re unaware. For one who previously commanded a modest domain of her own, you seem uncommonly ignorant.”
It had been a long time since anyone had called Semple ignorant and biting back her anger took an effort. She knew her safest course was to go with the flow and ladle on the fawning diplomacy, but it wasn’t easy. Anubis raised her hackles. “My journey to your domain was made in all innocence, my lord. I had heard great things about the wonders of your city and merely wanted to see its glory for myself.”
Semple thought that she’d done tolerably well until a growl rumbled in Anubis’s throat. “We warned you not to lie to us, Semple McPherson.”
Semple raised her head and looked Anubis straight in the eye. “I assure you that I’m not lying to you, my lord.”
“You’re hardly telling us the whole unvarnished truth.”
“My lord?”
“We can appreciate that you might want to see the glories of our realm, but we’re also aware that you’re engaged in a poaching mission on behalf of your sister. Do you deny that you came here looking to recruit a fantasy artist to assist her in enlarging and improving her wretched little Heaven?”
After he delivered this bombshell, Anubis’s eyes remained locked on Semple’s for a four- or five-second eternity before he looked away and reached for another piece of sirloin. Semple had to use unnatural restraint not to let the shock register in her face. How the hell did this megalomaniac know so much about her and Aimee’s plans? Was it possible that he actually had informers inside Aimee’s Heaven? Or, worse still, inside her own Hell? Someone or something had to be feeding him information. She had seriously underestimated the dog-headed boy. He probably had an evil network of out-of-control intelligence agencies tearing all over the Afterlife and getting into everybody’s business, doubtless manned by a deranged cadre of misfits, sadists, and malcontents eager to spend their hereafter playing James Bond or J. Edgar Hoover. But hindsight was of little use to Semple now. “I can only repeat, my lord, that I came here in all innocence. I admit that I had agreed to assist my sister in finding a suitable individual to work with her on her expansion plans, but-”
Anubis abruptly stopped relishing the latest beef morsel and cut her off. “Let’s just suppose for a moment that you’d actually come here with an open invitation and all of the correct documentation and diplomatic credentials. The matter of your attempting to coerce one of our subjects-a subject that we own and hold in thrall-to come back with you to the realm of your sister would pose a serious problem within itself.”
Semple wasn’t sure where he was going with all this, so she decided to play dumb. “I don’t understand, my lord.”
“If you recruited your fantasy artist here in Necropolis, you would be effectively depriving us of a piece of our personal property. You would be nothing more than a thief.”
Semple immediately adopted an attitude of injured outrage. “My lord, I am not a thief.”
“No? Everything and everyone in the city of Necropolis and the surrounding territories and protectorates constitutes our personal and inalienable property. How could the removal of an individual be anything but theft against our person?”
“That was not my intention, my lord.”
“Didn’t they used to say that the road to Hell was paved with good intentions? As one who has attempted to organize her very own minor Hell, you are probably well aware of the axiom.”
At this point, Semple could do nothing to stop her control from slipping. How dare this mutation-mutt cast aspersions on her creation? “My Hell is more than minor, my lord.”
Anubis’s stare turned decidedly walleyed. “Is it?”
Semple was reminded how Zipporah the primary concubine had warned her not to argue or contradict Anubis. Anubis’s remark about her “very minor Hell” had driven the instruction clear out of her mind. Anubis repeated the question, his voice a threatening snarl. “Is it?”
Semple quickly backpedaled. “The word might be `modest,’ my lord. Or perhaps ‘boutique’?”
Anubis snapped back impatiently. “Minor? Modest? Boutique? Does it really matter? Is it anything like Necropolis?”
Now Semple could answer with heartfelt truthfulness. “No, my lord. That is very true. It’s absolutely nothing like Necropolis.”
“In its size?”
“No, my lord.”
“In its grandeur?”
“No, my lord.”
“In the complexity of its design?”
“No, my lord.”
“Then it hardly really matters, does it? It’s an inferior construct and we have no reason to discuss it any further.”
Semple was sorely tempted to snap back that Necropolis was also the worst totalitarian mess since Albania gave up communism, but she restrained herself and spread her hands in courtly surrender.
“A poor thing but mine own, my lord.”
Anubis looked as though he were about to respond unfavorably even to this conciliatory gesture, but right then the figure in the robe slid briefly forward, out from the shadows, and whispered something to its lord and master. Anubis beamed and nodded. “Very good point. In fact, an excellent point.”
The figure in the robe faded back to the shadows, leaving Semple none the wiser about who or what it might be. She had momentarily glimpsed a pair of glinting eyes, but all else remained concealed beneath the cowl. Anubis looked sideways at Semple. “Our dream warden points out that, even leaving aside your intended theft of our property, the fact that your sister intends to expand her environment may in itself create a problem.”
Now Semple really was at a loss, and had in no way to act to seem dumb. For a start, what the hell was a dream warden? “A problem, my lord?”
“Our dream warden suggests that this expansion may be a prelude to your sister’s attempting to achieve some manner of godhead. As all thinking entities should be well aware, we are the only accredited god in this quadrant of the Afterlife.”
Semple straightened her back. It was time to stand up to this pompous lunatic and his goddamned dream warden. She adopted the demented formality that seemed to be the only way to deal with Anubis. “I believe, my lord, being much more fully acquainted with my sister and her intentions than your dream warden, I am in a far better position to assure you that nothing could be further from her mind. She simply maintains an environment for the comfort and protection of those from the lifeside who arrive here seeking a traditionally fundamental Christian heaven. Of course, if my word is insufficient, you can always take the matter up with my sister.”
Semple felt quite pleased with herself. She had refuted the dream warden without being directly confrontational and argumentative. Better still, Anubis seemed to be buying it. He was at least chowing down on yet another wafer of sirloin and thinking about it. Unfortunately, the dream warden moved forward for another shot. After more whispering, Anubis smiled again. “Our dream warden now points out that these discussions regarding the aspirations or otherwise of your sister in the matter of deification are largely academic. You’re unlikely to be seeing your sister at any time in the predictable future.”