The Hellhound Duke [Part1/2]

Chapter 5

Asa

     Despite how much I'd assured the servants, in hindsight, I don't think it was wise to leave their protection; flames may singe my skin and glass may strike my heel, but what tears me from inside-out, leaving not a single damn mark, is being alone with my unappealing side.

     The overpriced inn a few miles away was like looking into a mirror; it was visibly ill-equipped for its sole purpose and so deprecated it looked like it was about to crumble from the inside-out. Additionally, the peeling walls were deeply permeated with smoke. For the hotel, this meant the ceiling had a brownish tinge from years of patrons lighting up tobacco inside. For my conscience? I could all but taste what, too, blemished its furthest corners.

     The conversation with the Hellhound at the bar was one that burst the hair-thin seams of sparse lace on the gaping wound I'd taken far too little time to patch up at the pitch-tent.

     This didn't stop me taking shelter there, being out of options, but, courtesy of that talk, I broke down once inside. To burn some fuel and keep myself occupied, I cleaned up the room a little; so, just as I fervently washed the thin bed sheets, vacuumed the carpeted floors in the dead of night, and drunkenly haggled with the staff for clean bathroom towels until their ears bled, I decided to tidy myself up.

     Like any grieving man in need of comfort, I took a scalding shower in the mirrorless bathroom, drank and cried and conversed with myself until I vomited up my rage and turmoil, then went to bed.

     As a result, when I wake up, hungover on the disheveled, twin bed, my first thought is; 'We must tread lightly.'

     I get out of my thin covers, having torn out the bindings and redressed the wound on my head, now pondering the aching hole in my chest I know I won't idly seal as the memory of the night floods back to me. I reaffirm to myself what I told the Frysiya; 'I need to repair everything that's been undone without pretending I'm the only one in the Underworld it's affecting, because it isn't.'

     To accomplish that, though, I'll need the proper paperwork.

     I bathe again, dress again, absentmindedly brush my teeth and gums and fur, call for my servants (they apologized for not getting me up, not that I cared, stating they ran into some difficulties persuading the post office to ship bags of random junk to a former Duke's estate) and head for the Ring of Treason.    

     Twelve grand in taxicab fees, a few curious drivers, six hours on the highway, and four Frysiya in a trench coat later, we're at the entrance to the icy eighth ring of Hell, within walking distance to the ninth. It's not exactly its own ring, per se- more of a subsection- but you would be wrong to say it wasn't a separate entity.

     All of Pride sits atop a layer of ice, interwoven by an archaic yet maddeningly complex series of large concrete tunnels which rise and fall and warp and widen, joining mile-high skyscrapers and stadiums with dense sprawls of strip malls, bustling supermarkets, and high-class swathes of suburbia alike.

     Stoic masses of arching walkways- the slower, less expensive method of commerce- connect offices, apartments, news networks, and parking garages, their weight suspended thousands of feet in the air ad nauseam like tangled, glass wires. This two-faced system of commerce is as old as Hell itself, but has been expanded, modernized, and upgraded countless times whenever the need arises or whenever Lucifer wants to show off his domain's enormous, undeserved wealth. 

     The yellow cab drives off, leaving dust in its wake, turning around and roaring back through the tunnel. I brush the specks off of my white joggers and adjust the polished brown buttons on my inky-blue coat before taking to the bustling sidewalk, which reeks of piss and tobacco and feet.