“Here’s the address,” Ernesto says, handing his old friend a written slip.

“I’ll handle it.”

“Let the Organization pick up the pieces on this one. Interface with Haversham, have them send a couple of their own to clean up the mess.”

“And if they can’t?”

“Then that’s a win for us either way. The herd must be thinned. We must whittle this stick to a sharpened point.” It was true. If the killers took care of Mookie and – bonus points – the daughter, so be it. If the Organization assassins ended up on the slab? Fine. At this point it was a numbers game.

“Pearl’s a special case.”

“Is he? He’s the bull. We are the matadors.”

“He’s the one who saved the miner down in the tunnel.”

“Was he?” That’s news. “Perhaps he’s a very lucky bull.”

“Or smarter than we think.”

“Hm. Fine, fine. Send some backup. Look to your friends in the caste.”

Sorago nods.

“For the family,” the Naga says.

Chapter 13

13

The Underworld has many names because we have given it many names. The Great Below. The Deep Downstairs. Hell. Hades. Tartarus. Gimkodan. Naraka. It has many names and many places. This is not the only Underworld. There are many Hells beneath many parts of the world, all connecting at the bottom. The geography of our Hell is not fully mapped – it is a quantity that many have claimed impossible to know. But I feel differently. I feel it can be mapped. That its stories can and should be told. I will walk this sunless realm. I will start here, in the upper portions, in the place we call the Shallows. Then, into the labyrinth called the Fathomless Tangle. Then one day I shall find my way to the Ravenous Expanse. Where the eyeless gods of this place moan and gnash teeth the size of skyscrapers.

– from the Journals of John Atticus Oakes, Cartographer of the Great Below

Nora fidgets. She chews an unpainted nail down to the quick. A bead of blood rises. She holds it up, sees the torchlight captured in the curve of the red.

“You sure that was a good idea, sugar?” Skelly asks her.

“It’s part of the plan.”

“A plan you just made up.”

“We have to adjust. Things are… changing.”

“You’re bringing trouble to our doorstep.”

“Part of the price.” Nora shrugs. She tries not to act nervous, tries to act cool as an ice cube in a snowman’s mouth, but all she can do is keep biting one fingernail after the next. “Nothing good is ever free.”

Skelly paces. On one side of her face is the blue LED light from a camping lantern sitting atop an overturned oil drum. The other side, lit by firelight. A two-faced mask. Finally she turns, thrusts a finger up in Nora’s face.