Outside, I stepped into the dark space of a tower doorway to make certain I’d grabbed the right thing while Scissor Sister was picking up the stuff I knocked over. I took a quick look at the out-basket files I’d stolen, a few pieces of vellum with official Chancery letterhead. More important, though, was the other thing I’d lifted, a wooden stamp that looked like it might have come right off Ebenezer Scrooge’s desk, except instead of “Scrooge & Marley” it said “Ministry of Justice.”

Perfect.

I didn’t sleep very well that night, and it wasn’t just because of the intermittent shrieks of agony from the promenade along Sulfur Lagoon. They weren’t really any worse than the stink of the lagoon itself, and both were easier to ignore than the weird buzzing, gagging sex two or three somethings were having in the room above mine.

I was finally ready, after all this time, to do what I had come to Hell to do, or at least to begin doing it. If you know me at all by now, you know that I’m not so stupid as to do the same stupid thing every time—I prefer to alternate my stupidities. I had been discreetly checking into Eligor’s setup (loyalty is almost nonexistent in Hell, and bribery is one of the favorite pastimes). I wasn’t going to just charge into his fortress of a house. I knew I couldn’t just saunter in and liberate Caz. I wasn’t even going to make a plan until I knew more. That was why I had been sitting up all evening making fake Ministry of Justice documents for myself, until I had come up with something that satisfied my intention to walk in and out of Eligor’s stronghold with my skin on and my vital organs still in their original places.

When I’d tackled Eligor in his earthly stronghold at Five Page Mill back in San Judas, I hadn’t known who and what I was dealing with. I did now. I was pretty sure I’d only get one shot to get her away from him, and I’d have to be very lucky to get even that. I needed a real plan, but first I needed to see his castle, called Flesh Horse, up close.

Just getting near it was difficult, because although the top levels had the same kind of connective branches leading horizontally to other great mansions, they were all closely guarded. Like the Infernal Cabinet House and most other important buildings in Pandaemonium, the base of Flesh Horse sat in a wide park, walled off from its neighbors. The grounds were tangled with blood-colored trees and aggressively guarded by legions of what looked like albino scorpions with wolves’ heads. They didn’t worry me too much, because I was intending to walk right in through the front door, at least this first time.