The High Order

5. Bridge over the River Dis

5.       Bridge over the River Dis

1. After the success of Abigail's trial, news had quickly spread that if anyone in Hell needed anything done, they would go straight to its resident Purgatorian Dan. Every morning, a barge from the mainland would deliver a buttload of fan mail through his front door or clog his letterbox to the brim. After finishing breakfast and making his usual cup of joe, Dan shuffled through the bottom floor of number 42 to collect the fan mail and stuff it onto one of the couches in the living room. Never before had Dan garnered so much attention, support and popularity.

As a novelty, he plucked the tallest letter off of the mountain of fan mail and opened it. It was addressed to a Monsieur Homard, an affluent French aristocrat who helped institute the reign of terror after the French revolution, meeting a grisly end by the guillotine when the people he sought to liberate from oppression turned against him in 1794. Since arriving in Hell his body had been separated from his head, and he had probably paid someone to write and mail the message for him for lack of body parts capable of writing.

It had been addressed to the district of Glutton, where there had been rumors of a rolling head and a headless body that seemed perfectly matched that never met up after over two centuries of separation. There was also the indication of a reward in the letter, and Dan was not the kind of man who would turn down a reward easily. In life, Dan had always accepted targets and investigations that came with a bounty or incentive, be it money, women, alcohol or even something as lowly as cigarettes, Dan would take it all, risking his life in the process to procure the necessary supplies to sedate his insatiable fixes. Upon the mentioning of a reward, Dan washed, getting dressed in a pair of jeans and a plain shirt similar to the outfit he wore in the human world and launched himself at the nearest available barge to take him from the Isle of the Damned to the mainland.

He came to land on the southwestern beach within sight of Lucifer's palace in search of Main street, that could take him to Glutton, judging from a store-bought pocket map. He was now indistinguishable from the other demons of Hell with his civilian clothing rather than a hybrid robe of red and white. All that made him stand out from the sheep now was his half angelic half demonic face that a few still continued to notice as one of Hell's many oddities.

2. On the way across Main street to start his trove for the missing body parts, Dan felt another sneeze coming on. He knew now that it only meant one thing and one thing only. He sneezed and was sent through the realms until he was in the middle of a town by the seaside. The beings around him had half angel and half demon features on their faces, but Dan did not stay around long enough to observe them further. He soon sneezed again and arrived back in Hell at the place where he had left, by the side of Main street. He did not know how to control this sneezing or his ability to travel between the realms, but that would all come in time. Dan asked several of the locals in the district of Glutton for information but was rebuffed by almost all of them, except for an old man in a café along the street.

Overhearing Dan's pleas for help in finding the body and head of Monsieur Homard. He told Dan that a mad scientist owned a talking head and a body after collecting if from the streets, working out of his laboratory on the crossroads in the district of Sibyl to the north. Dan immediately proceeded to the dark gray building on the crossroads that was the mad scientist's laboratory. He could see sparks from a grate leading down to the basement where he worked. If Homard was here, he must have been captured soon after having the letter sent.

Dan knocked on the steel front door, but it was unlocked and allowed Dan to creep into the dark lightless interior of the ground floor. With no visibility, Dan could only find light in an energy ball that he held in his hand. The light from the basement had ceased as Dan proceeded down a set of open stairs. He discovered a light switch on a nearby brick wall and turned it on, revealing the mad scientist's lab, filled with sharp metal tools, an autopsy table and the head and body of Monsieur Homard talking to Dan from his chains on the wall.