“Sure, Father. Which of them gets rescued and who has to stay in Hell forever? You choose.”
“I see the dilemma.”
“Lucifer, the first Lucifer, always told me my problem was that I didn’t think big. Well, I’m trying to now. And stashing a few souls in the pantry isn’t the way to do it.”
“I trust you.”
“That makes one of us.”
I strap the dead hellhound to the front of the bike and put Father Traven on the back.
“This won’t be a long trip, but it might be a little weird. You can close your eyes if you want to.”>I put down the kickstand and go around the front of the bike to cut down the captain. It only takes a second to see why he stopped yelling. His lips are frozen shut. I give him a little pop in the mouth. Not to hurt him. Just to break up the ice. And to hurt him a little. Remind him whose game this is. I take off his blindfold and he looks around in wonder.
“We’re here,” he says.
“Looks like it. Here’s what’s going to happen next. You’re a captain. We’re going inside and you’re going to do the meanest, most hard-ass officer impression of your life. Order people around. Make them salute and kiss your ass. Then tell them you want to see the new arrivals.”
He shivers in his thin city coat. So do I. I put up my hoodie.
The captain shakes his head.
“What if it doesn’t work? Are you going to kill me?”
“Why wouldn’t it work?”
“They might be in a different regiment. They might not take my orders. Sometimes soldiers stationed this far out for too long can go a little wild.”
“Do your best,” I say, and whisper the hoodoo that resets the glamour on my face. The captain shakes his head.
“This will never work.”
“Maybe not, but isn’t it more fun than getting drunk all on your lonesome?”
“No.”
“You’re welcome. Now go up there and be an asshole, Captain Bligh.”
He moves so fast for the door to the Quonset hut I have to trot to keep up. He bursts inside with all the subtlety of a mammoth on roller skates.
Six guards stare at us. One is standing by an old wood-burning oven and the others are scattered around several tables. There used to be more guards here. The ones that remain don’t like one another much. All good information to have.
The moment we get inside and the captain gets warm air into his lungs, he starts looking like an officer. He stands up straight, giving the scruffy guards the hairy eyeball. The bad news is that they give it right back. No one gets up when they see him. No one salutes. The Hellion by the oven nods and pours something thick and sludgy from a pot into a coffee cup.
He says, “Well, what did you do to get this shit duty?”
The captain doesn’t answer for a few seconds.
“I don’t believe I heard you say ‘sir’ at the end of that sentence, did I, soldier?” he says.
The soldier at the oven seems genuinely shocked.
“I guess not. Sorry. Sir.”
“Quiet,” says the captain. “I’m not here to correct your grammar or manners. This is an inspection. I want one of you to escort me to the new arrivals.”
A scrawny recruit with a crooked nose sitting at a table by himself says, “Who’s your friend?”
“Again, I didn’t hear ‘sir’ at the end of the sentence when addressing me.”