The Way Back: Chapters 4–6

...he was afraid the pounding hooves would trample him into the loam and he dove down into a low copse and the hooves pounded past.

"I am the Right Deplorable Carrion of the Cracked and Blasted Wastes of Tehom, Master of Ragged Flesh, Bringer of—”

One sweet day of anonymity, one day to walk among others, to join in their celebration and not be reviled for simply existing—was that so much to ask?

It began with the water barrel in the corner, stolid and immovable in its spot for years, never once to wobble.

The snow continued to fall, soft and fine, almost clandestine, and by the time Bluma rose from her hiding spot, there was no sign of a single footprint behind her.

Bluma wheeled about, searching for a safe way to go, but here were two more cats, and a fourth hopping lithely up onto a gravestone.

The Treasure House of Lord Mammon is a wide, rambling jumble of walls and buttresses, porticoes, arches, and columns.

Out of curiosity, Yehuda Leib took an old map down from a high shelf, but the accumulated mass of angry, feathery dust on its surface threw him into such a paroxysm of sneezing that he resolved, as much as possible, to leave things where they were.

From time to time, one of the Sisters of the Lileen would join Lilith—a gray cat alighting on her shoulder, a gray lady falling in beside her—and they would walk together briefly, talking quietly or not at all.

It seemed totally capricious: back and forth, back and forth, as if they were following only Lilith's whim.

At the far end, a gilded throne sat empty on a high dais.

At the foot of the dais, rows of rough wooden chairs stood in parallel, and among them, several figures sat waiting.

It took Yehuda Leib long moments of blinking to discern who had spoken.

A derisive snort came from a spindly woman slouching over two chairs at once. “I told you.”

And then, in the midst of the detritus, as if it were no more important than any other thing, there it was...

But he was revolted to find that what had seemed warm and rich was, in fact, tepid and fusty, like ancient green pond water, and it neither filled his belly nor soothed his throat.

“Just think of what might be accomplished if one managed to capture the Rebbe! Why, if you could corrupt him in place, he could spread your avarice among all his followers. You might even be able to accumulate property in the living lands. Or you could choose to hold him as a commodity, my lord! I needn't tell you how many others desire the advantage of the Rebbe. What price might he command?"

“Of course not,” said Mammon, and with a florid gesture he beckoned Yehuda Leib up.

Now more came, and more: a flock of bat-winged creatures cackling and diving, a huge serpent slithering languidly beneath the accumulated snow, the figure of a man so covered in sores and boils that he cracked and oozed with every little movement of his body.

Soon the fracas began to grow: petty little goblins barking and screaming, hawking their wares at the outskirts of the swarming.

The crowd was thick now, demons of all stripes surging toward the little Zubinsk graveyard like a rain-flooded river. If Bluma had been alone, she would've been subsumed, swallowed in the tide for certain, but traveling with the Sisterhood of the Lileen had its advantages: Lilith was known to all, and feared by those with any sense.

The formation of gray cats behind Bluma opened and closed again to admit the smarmy demon.

One of Belial's attendants giggled and rolled his eyes on the far side of the cordon of cats.

Slowly, the word Bluma passed from Belial’s lips and disseminated itself throughout the little clutch of hangers-on.

Near the outskirts of the swarm, the goblins and imps were unmistakable—all slavering maws and leathery wings—but here they'd begun to arm themselves with the leavings of human life: pale, flickering memories at first, of shabby dresses and threadbare coats, and then things that were more substantial.

But soon the simulacra became more refined. There were demons here that Bluma might very well have mistaken for living people if, every so often, the moonlight hadn't cut through their skin, showing the ragged, ravenous things beneath.

Inside, an exclusive fete for only the eldest and most powerful demons was being thrown, and burbling chatter could be heard from within.

A beguiling, lolloping melody was being played.

Needless to say, this exclusive reception blocked off entirely the swath of cemetery closest to the Zubinsk gate.

“Lady Lilith,” said the doorkeeper, a hulking saber-toothed ogre in a neat red-and-black livery.

Two liveried goblins stood guard before them, ostensibly to keep the reveling demons from inadvertently coming into contact with the cold metal, but in truth to protect Lord Azazel's privilege: first through when dawn broke in Zubinsk.

Two liveried goblins stood guard before them, ostensibly to keep the reveling demons from inadvertently coming into contact with the cold metal, but in truth to protect Lord Azazel's privilege: first through when dawn broke in Zubinsk.

“You don't imagine Lord Azazel would be so gauche as to arrive on time to his own party."

“Perhaps," said Belial, “he is hunting the Bluma, like the rest of the rabble out there. I don't know whom I pity more tonight—Lilith, or all the poor devils foolish enough to try her."

“I don't doubt that someone saw something that looked like Lord Mammon, but the last time he traveled away from his Treasure House, Mammon went in a carriage the size of a castle, drawn by a team of elephants. He is not, let me tell you, one for subtlety.”

“No, no, no,” said a high, reedy voice, cutting through the racket.

His spectacles and sharp teeth gleamed in the diffuse moonlight, but Bluma had scarcely any attention to spare for them.

She had seen him only yesterday (had it only been yesterday?), and somehow in that short time, he had grown wan, lean, and haggard, his hair long, his jaw set, his eyes deep and searching.

It was becoming an instinct now, moving her face away from importunate eyes in order to preserve her anonymity.

She felt a small spasm of guilt as she performed the maneuver: Yehuda Leib was in an even more precarious position than she, and she felt bad not leaping to help.