I made my way back across the center of the city to Dis Pater Square, where I was supposed to find what Caz had called “the temple.” I wasn’t sure what that was, and it didn’t seem like it would be easy to find: Beeger Square back home was a pretty big place, but you could have dropped about ten of them into Dis Pater and still had lots of ugly space left over. Also, Dis Pater wasn’t kept anywhere near as tidy as Beeger Square. Hell has no building codes and pretty dubious physics, so if there was such a thing as an old temple, it might easily be obscured underneath squatter camps and impromptu markets. Dis Pater was the center of Pandaemonium. Like big cities back on Earth, it drew refugees from all over, but didn’t have enough places to put them all.

I walked past some of the most bizarre gypsy-type camps you can imagine, including tents aerated by eye, nose, and mouth-holes still visible in the stretched skin. Others had been cobbled together from the shells of giant infernal bugs. On one side of the square a massive flock of winged demons perched like the pigeons of Venice on the facade of an abandoned palace, fanning themselves with their wings. Dozens of other creatures squatted in the shadows beneath them, perhaps enjoying the breeze from the winged ones’ flapping squabbles, but more likely feeding off the garbage or even the guano they dropped.

I found Caz’s temple at last, a structure that would have been small and unprepossessing if not for its aura of immense age. The blocks were so crude that only time had brought any smoothness to them, but you could still see where they seemed to have been torn loose from the mother stone. I climbed the steps to the open doorway, which gaped like an idiot mouth, and peered inside. Nothing seemed to prevent me from walking into the shadowed interior, but it would have taken a lot more than the threat of mere physical pain to get me to do so. The ancient temple was dark, hot, and airless, of course, and quiet but for the buzzing of an unusual amount of flies. It seemed deserted, but something about the place was so creepy that I still think about it today, even after all the other things that have happened to me.

When I turned away from the door, I saw a robed, hooded woman standing at the foot of the temple stairs. For a brief, happy moment I thought it was Caz, but as I started down she beckoned for me to follow her, and one glimpse of her bloodless, water-swollen hand told me who it was. Marmora, the drowned girl, led me out of the square and down a series of narrowing back streets. We walked blocks and blocks, but she never stopped dripping and left wet footsteps everywhere.