"Shouldn't we put that back on Lulu?"

"Don't worry. Even the Clerks can't see through dead eyes into Hell."

"You sure?"

"My father knew the place well."

"I hope you're right. I didn't like the idea of stumbling around down there with all of us blind."

Quietly, Non said to Spyder, "We made it, little brother. The entrance to the Inferno. 'I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places.'" As the cool cloth of the blindfold slid over Spyder's eyes, something nicked his left ear. Then his arm. He heard something shoot by and strike the wall.

"Get down!" screamed Lulu.

Spyder didn't have a choice. Count Non had collapsed against his back, knocking them both to the ground. The Count was dead weight on top of Spyder. He slowly crawled out from under the Count's body. Things flew by over his head, but he made it behind a bend in the rocks. From there Spyder looked back and saw Count Non's body bristling with at least a dozen golden arrows. Bright angels were pressed shoulder-to-shoulder at the cave entrance, arrows and quivers raised.

"Get ready to open the gates," Spyder shouted to Shrike. "Now!"

He brought the Hornet up and spun the business end as fast and hard as he could. The angels' arrows flew at them, but were vaporized by the Hornet's flails. Spyder kept the weapon between the angels and them. The angels advanced steadily into the cave. Some stood over Count Non's body, and that made Spyder angry. He spun the Hornet faster as a blast of heat and the stink of rotting flowers washed over his back.

A strange light filled the cave when Shrike pulled open the gates of Hell. The walls turned a deep russet, and the light seemed to bubble, as if it were boiling to the surface of the world in sluggish waves, weighed down by the malevolent gravity of Hell below and the miles of earth it had to pass through.

The forward-most angels' skin and wings turned dark and shriveled in the Hell light. The ones that didn't cook and collapse immediately, backed quickly out of the cave. When they were gone, Spyder went to Count Non and checked his pulse. He was dead. Spyder pulled the blindfold from the Count's hand and set the Hornet gently down beside him.

"I can't use this blind. Maybe it'll do you some good wherever you are," Spyder said.

There was a spiral wrought-iron stairway beyond the open gates, and sounds came from deep below. Some were rhythmic, others random. The rhythmic sounds were like the banging of vast and relentless machines. The arrhythmic sounds were screams. The walls of the cave flickered as if someone were quickly clicking a light switch on and off.

Before they entered the gates, Shrike knelt on the floor, took a handful of dust and sprinkled it over her head. "Count Non and Primo Kosinski. Strength to your spirits, my comrades, my friends."

"Vaya con Dios," said Spyder quietly.

"Sweet dreams, guys," Lulu said.

She slipped the blindfold over Spyder's eyes and made sure it was tight. Shrike took Spyder's left hand and he took Lulu's left. They walked through the gates of Hell and started down the long spiral staircase into the abyss.

Forty-Two

Izanami and Red Dragon

The first great war on Earth took place millions of years ago when the warrior princess, Izanami, fought Red Dragon, the rapacious prince of the west.

With her army following behind, Izanami ran all the way across the land of Jodo to fight Red Dragon. Izanami finally cornered and defeated Red Dragon in a battle that lasted for years and destroyed a third of their kingdom.

Izanami had a secret known only to a few of her most trusted officers. Izanami didn't defeat Red Dragon because she was a cleverer tactician or a stronger warrior. Izanami won because she was insane.

She came to the battlefield in a heavy cloak, under which she was wrapped in chains. As she entered the battlefield, she looked small and lost. It was only when she was released from all her heavy restraints that the full power of her madness was brought down up on Red Dragon. Izanami won the battle by exploding a volcano in the Khumbu Mountains. The lava and ash almost destroyed the world, but killed Red Dragon and his army first.

Izanami was the first hero on Earth, though few have ever heard of her historic combat. Her story remains popular with her people, but even among scholars across the three Spheres, Izanami's story is obscure.

The Nio, Izanami's people, were smoke wraiths. The entire epic war between Izanami and Red Dragon lasted no longer than the span of a human breath-but for the Nio, that breath was a lifetime. And that was Izanami's other secret. She knew how insignificant her people and their victory were in the universe. Its insignificance made the victory seem all the sweeter to Izanami, proving once again that the logic of Tricksters and the enlightened are hard to tell apart.

Forty-Three

Eaten Alive

They seemed to walk forever, but they never grew tired or hungry or thirsty.

"What a lousy day to stop smoking crack," said Spyder, stumbling on the staircase for maybe the fiftieth time. He had a deathgrip on the metal railing. It had never occurred to him that something as simple as walking down a flight of stairs could be such a pain in the ass when blind. His balance was off, his whole sense of where he ended and other objects began was gone and every new scream and sound from below startled him.

"I knew this reporter down in LA. He was doing a series of stories on local subcultures for one of the alternative weeklies. You know, the kind of scene-hopping bullshit that desk monkeys and teenyboppers read to feel edgy. Eventually, his editor wants him to write about the Hell's Angels. He gets a hookup to their clubhouse and he's surprised by how smart and cool most of the Angels seem. At the end of his formal interview, they tell him they're having a party and he should come, so he can get a better idea of what's what. Sure, he says, expecting a phone call or a flyer or something." Spyder stumbled again. Shrike caught him by the shoulder. "Thanks. About three in the morning, he's in bed. When he opens his eyes, he finds about a half-dozen Angels in his bedroom. 'Get dressed,' they tell him. He's no dummy. He does what he's told. Outside are about a dozen more Angels. They rev their bikes loud enough to peel paint off the neighbors' houses and roar out into the canyons over the Hollywood Hills, with my reporter friend riding bitch on the back of some guy's bike.

"The thing about those canyons is, there's a lot of bodies buried out there. A million years from now, archeologists are going to understand us from all the bones of the dead TV producers, junkie musicians, porn stars and coke dealers scattered through those canyons. And my friend doesn't know if he's going to get laid or stomped or shot in the head and buried in a shallow grave. Then they round a corner and he sees the lights and hears the music. The Angels promised him a party and, sure enough, there's a party going on.

"But an Angel party isn't a regular kind of party. There's a lot of guys on massive doses of acid, playing William Tell with fifty caliber handguns. There's knives flying by and gangbangs and more beer than in all of Milwaukee. And here's my little artsy-fartsy weekly newsrag lit major buddy trying to be Cool Hand Luke with it all. The thing he said, though, and I believe this, was that after a while he really was cool with the savage craziness. The party went on all night and into the next day, and the way he put it, 'You can only be terrified for so long.'"

"I guess you're still looking for your happy place on this trip," said Lulu.

"Working on it. I figure Hell can't be any worse than Houston."

"Are we close to the bottom, Lulu?" asked Shrike.

"Damned if I know. It just keeps going down."