“He won’t hurt you now,” said Heartspider at last. She sounded like she’d enjoyed what had just happened. “Won’t hurt anything, not for a long time.”

But there was a frenzied anger in me that wouldn’t let go, and I kicked the rubbery, broken thing another half dozen times, seeing dim sprays of fluid in the half-light and liking the way they looked. When I stopped I was gasping, and my heart beat like a stamping press set on high, but all I wanted to do was kick the nasty thing some more. Hell was definitely getting to me.

I found the key on its belt, along with a string of little bells and enough sharp objects to get an entire street gang thrown in jail. I wiped scum off the torch until it burned brightly again, and at Heartspider’s direction I gathered up her bones, still ribboned with leathery shreds of flesh. I had nothing to carry them in, but I found some rags stiff with old blood and tied them into a hobo’s bindle, then slung it over my shoulder. The bones clicked against each other as I made my way out into the dark corridor. I swear, they sounded happy.

Heartspider spoke into my ear, making me jump. “If only we could give Niloch the same, but he is too strong for you.”

I had no urge to encounter my host again. “Just tell me where to go. How do I get out?”

“Down. Like most lordlings in Hell, the Commissar of Wings and Claws has many ways in and out of his lair. Down where the boilers are. Down.”

I let her guide me downstairs and across several basement floors. Even in the middle of the infernal night, there were sounds coming from behind doors that made me pray—yes, pray—that I never had to see what was on the other side. The place was a maze, and by the time we found our way down to what Heartspider told me was the lowest level, I was certain that Niloch or his slaves must have noticed the mess I’d left behind, especially because most of it had been his beloved jester.

The bottom room was more like the Roman catacombs, endless arches of heavy stone and gigantic pipes that looked like they might have been made of fired clay, lit by the kind of globe lights I had seen in the entry hall. It looked almost ordinary, like the underbelly of a subway station or some other bit of urban architecture, except for the bulging pipes, and the curses written on the wall by slaves or prisoners in their own blood.

“The breath of the underworld,” Heartspider said when I asked her what the pipes carried. “It fires the lights and Niloch’s machines.”