Read Online Jeffrey Thomas, Voices from Hades by Jeffrey Thomas - Free Book Online

Eridan’s breed was adapted to dwell in cities like Sheol at the bottom of this scarlet sea. Perhaps out of camouflage, or simply out of the Creator’s sense of aesthetics, these aquatic Demons were fire-engine red and preferred to go nude, showing off their layers of glittering scales and the wing-like fins (or fin-like wings) that flared from their backs when they weren’t folded up like fans. Petty and another tourist from Heaven, vacationing here in Hades like himself, had joked that Eridan looked like the Creature From The Red Lagoon. Eridan had looked over at them when they’d chuckled at his expense, but he was a mere Demon despite his rank, and bound to serve each visiting Angel as if he were the greatest of dignitaries.
    Something slapped across Petty’s chest like a whip, rebounded from him and was left in the jet boat’s frothy wake. Almost dislodged from the rail, Petty let out a cry and looked back behind him. He saw something twist and writhe in the air. One of the eels that flew rather than swam, as disoriented as he was after their collision.
    "Sorry!" Eridan called out cheerfully, weaving the boat between furrows of the lapping blood. "I’ve been trying to steer us through the thickest clouds of them." He tilted his chin to indicate a swarm of the airborne creatures, off to their left. The animals squirmed like boiling maggots, a living storm cloud above the surface of the waves.
    "What attracts them to one spot like that? Fish in the sea?"
    "Maybe. Or a Damned, escaping from Sheol, or from one of the Obsidian Islands. If you think they’re thick here, sir, you should see the Valley of Steam. The air is a solid mass with them."
    The other Angel tourist aboard the boat, who’d introduced himself to Petty as Mike Rule, was already at the harpoon gun in the boat’s bow, his fists clenched around the metal handles, swiveling it this way and that. It creaked with its patina of rust-or-blood. "I hope it’s a Damned," he said, pressing his eye to a scope. "Could I hit him from here if I saw him? Or would that draw the eels to us?"
    "We’re a bit too far to hit someone there, if there is someone," Captain Eridan said. "But don’t worry, sir, you’ll have your chance."
    "What if I see one of your kind swimming?" Rule asked, his grin showing under the cup of the scope. "Can I shoot him? Will I get in trouble?"
    Petty glanced over at Eridan’s face, the entirely red eyes devoid of pupils, but the Demon remained courteous as he replied, "It is to be discouraged, sir, but of course you can do as you please."
    "Thar she blows," Petty said, shielding his eyes with one hand, as he saw a flailing arm rise out of the water and submerge again. In that brief instant, eels had darted at it, and he was certain had torn chunks from it. The frenzied cloud of animals and the Damned man or woman, who could drown but be quickly resurrected to drown again, and again, were left behind them.
    "I hope I see my ex-boss out here," said Rule, still swiveling the harpoon gun. "If that bastard didn’t go to Hell there’s no justice in the universe."

    ««—»»

    After a short while, with the shore of obsidian cliffs and glittering volcanic sand lost in the distance, Captain Eridan cut their speed to a comfortable, leisurely pace. From a cooler in the stern, Petty and Rule took bottles of beer. Rule jokingly offered a bottle to one of Eridan’s crew, but the Demon shook its head and lowered its eyes, slapping away on its webbed feet to continue swabbing blood from the deck. "I’m getting hungry, Mike," Petty quipped dryly as he watched the creature. "Got any tartar sauce?"
    "Can you imagine going down on one of their ladies?" Rule said. "That would really smell like fish." He looked over his shoulder at their vessel’s composed captain. "But you know what they say, Captain Sinbad…if it smells like fish, that’s my dish. If it smells like cologne, leave it alone!"
    On the horizon they spied a much larger craft, a