I imagined that the men who wrote those words had higher aspirations than most of us who passed beneath them into the city below.
Some optimistic bishop had christened the place Hopetown. Anyone who had ever gone there called it Hells Below. That summed it up well enough.
It might have been beautiful three hundred years ago when the Covenant of Redemption had brought my fallen ancestors up from Damnation. They abandoned their great kingdom of endless darkness in exchange for the promise of Salvation for themselves and their descendants.
The walls of the staircase were adorned with mosaics of the Great Conversion. Ashmedai, Sariel, Satanel. The pride and glory of hell had come in their robes of fire, in their chariots of beaten gold. Some were adorned with jewels, while others wore the polished bones of the angels that had fallen beneath their blades. They had each bowed down before the Silver Cross and submitted to baptism at the hands of the Inquisition.
The brilliant glazes were darkened with lamp smoke and factory grease now, but the images were still discernable. Some-where among the glittering host of demons, one of my own ancestors stood. They all looked fierce and beautiful. I found it difficult to imagine that I could have descended from such creatures.
The blood had certainly thinned.
The carved temples and catacombs that had once been a city of hope had decayed into dank ghetto. Hundreds of tunnels riddled Hells Below now. City sewer pipes and massive gas lines invaded every space and dripped with condensation. The lattice of temple walls had collapsed. Now, vast caverns gaped wide with tenement houses and ore sluices. The children of hell's greatest lords had been bred down into coal miners.
Relegated by law to the confines of the capital city, few Prodigals even attempted to leave Hells Below. They stayed down where they at least had each other for company, as well as the comfort of cavernous darkness. Only the worst of our kind lived in the city above. Criminals, exiles, and addicts. I supposed I fit all three descriptions at one time or another.
"Did you want me to carry this beef pie around for some purpose?" Harper asked.
"I thought you might want to eat it," I replied, though in truth I had just wanted to get rid of it.
"One was more than enough." Harper suddenly turned and rushed back up several of the steps. He stopped in front of a woman who had been working her way up the stairs and handed her the pie. Then he strode back down beside me.
"Well, that takes care of that," he said.
"Was she a Prodigal?" I glanced back quickly at the woman, but the sun from above burned out most of my vision. All I had noticed as she passed me on the steps had been the numerous lace shawls that hung over her back and arms. She moved slowly, as if she were either extremely old or extremely drunk.
"Bright yellow eyes and fingernails blacker than yours," Harper commented. "I couldn't see her ears, but I don't doubt they were pointed. Her teeth sure as hell were. She hissed at me too." He seemed amused by this.
"She probably thought you were handing her poison." I looked meaningfully at the silver eyes of the Inquisition that glinted from either side of Harper's collar.
"Not every man joins the Inquisition just to burn Prodigals. We uphold the law as well," Harper said as we continued down the stairs. "Sooner or later, some of you are bound to figure that out."
"I wouldn't bet my bread money on that." I had to glance away to suppress the flare of anger that rushed through me. I knew quite well how the men of the Inquisition dealt with Prodigals. I had been burned once myself, but that was long past and none of Harper's business.
"We are a surprisingly stubborn bunch," I said.
"So you are." Harper smiled.
We stepped down into the heavy darkness of Hells Below. The warm air hung over us in swathes. The thick flavors of so many Prodigals living so close saturated every breath with a taste like a heavy chemical perfume. The scents rolled into each other, smell-ing by turns of violets, sulfur, urine, and fragrant lamps. It wasn't easy to take in. Each breath was like a long drag from a cigarette. I had forgotten how familiar its taste was.
Harper coughed and had to take several slow breaths before he adjusted to the air.
As we walked, I noticed the skin on his exposed cheeks began to take on a pink flush as though it was sunburned. His eyes seemed irritated also. Harper just pulled his cap a little lower and continued moving as if it was no trouble to him at all. In fact, he seemed as familiar with the place as he had been with the bars of Brighton.
He strode through the narrow streets with the natural ease of a man who had been here before. He took alley shortcuts without glancing up to check a street name or number.
"Do you come here often?" I asked as we trudged down a narrow side road. The gaslight of the streetlamps flickered. Drops of condensed breath, sweat, and steam spattered down on us from the cavern ceiling far above.
"Have I surprised you?" Harper glanced sidelong at me.
"No." I didn't like the smugness of his tone. "I just thought that you would be more acquainted with Brighton than Hells Below."
"I did my first three years of foot patrol down here." Harper stepped onto a walkway of planks. I followed him. Oily liquid lapped up from just below the wooden boards as we walked over them.
"Did you make many Prodigal friends while you were here?" I asked, knowing that he couldn't have.
"Of course not." Harper looked back at me. "Did you ask just to hear me say so?"
"That could very well be the case." I grinned, showing Harper my long white teeth.
"You really are quite unique, aren't you, Mr. Sykes?" he said.
Harper's words satisfied me strangely. If he had complimented my wild black hair or my butter-colored eyes, I would have thought he was mocking me and hated him for it. If he had called me twisted or perverse, I would have secretly thought of jabbing him in the eye. But somehow he had known just the right words to give me a burst of warmth. I glanced ahead to the street number on one of the gray shale houses, deliberately ignoring Harper so that he would not know how his words pleased me.
"That's the one." I pointed to the hulking blue building just ahead of us.
"So it is," Harper replied.
The woman who answered the door looked at Harper intently for several moments before she let us in. She was tall, pale, and waxy. There was a transparency to her skin. The lamplight in the house seemed to glow through her. The shadows she cast were faint.
She walked us down a narrow hall and into a large, window-less waiting room in absolute silence. Her pale yellow dress didn't even rustle as she walked.
The waiting room seemed like it had been nice a long time ago. The chair I sat in rocked on its uneven legs. A dust of incense ash rose up from the upholstered arms. Harper seated himself on the high-backed settee across from me. Its red upholstery was dappled with faded shades of pink and brown. Dozens of mismatched candles covered the heavy wooden table in the middle of the room. Dried spills of wax drooped over the edge of the tabletop and clung to the carved legs.
There was a deeply familiar scent in the air. Something like mulled wine. I had smelled it before, a long time ago. I took a deep breath and held the taste in my mouth. It was smoky and warm. Tiny tongues of scent and heat caressed the insides if my mouth. It tasted like demonic conjuring. Uneasiness seeped through my muscles.