Alicia clutched at her husband. “Frank, he can help us. Let him.”
“I dunno.” He stared at Burnfingers, who waited patiently. “We might be getting ourselves in deeper than we already are.”
“You will find yourselves in deeper when they send you through the Gates to the First Level. Once past that point, nothing can help you.”
“That lieutenant admitted we don’t belong here. Maybe when they finish checking their records they’ll just let us go.”
Burnfingers nodded thoughtfully. “They might. But if they let you go, then they are going to have to fill out a big stack of special forms. They all hate paperwork. Just stopping you on the highway and bringing you in will tie up half a dozen clerks for a week. Letting you go will mean ten times as much work. I do not remember it ever happening before. I admit that the lieutenant is not bad for a demon, but when he figures out how much extra work he is going to have to authorize to process a release, he may find it better to lose you in the shuffle. Hell is an easy place to lose people. After a week or so down on the Third Level or lower you will none of you be in any condition to think of filing a complaint or anything else. Think hard, friend. Do you really expect to receive justice here?”
“Frank, please, let’s do as he says.” Alicia was pleading with him now. Her daughter joined in.
“Daddy, if he can get us out of this awful place, let him!” She was looking at the door. “I don’t want to have to see that creature again!”
His daughter’s stark terror convinced him. “Okay. We’ll take a chance on you, Begay.”
The big man was pleased. “Good. It has been a while since anyone had to take a chance on me. You really have no other choice. If this is passed on to the higher-ups they will find a way to keep you here. A nice, contented middle-class family like yours would be a coup for the boss here. So if he finds out what’s going on here he’ll have you booted through the Gate and damn any subsequent difficulties.”
“Can you do that trick with the water every time?” Alicia asked hesitantly.
“Those were just minor imps, class-four grade-school bullies. What I did was comparable to swatting a fly.”
“Fire-breathing flies,” Steven whispered to himself.
“A few of your major demonic personages, now, you toss a bucket of water in their direction and they’ll laugh and spit napalm back at you.”
“Then how are you going to get us out of here?” Frank challenged him.
“How did you get in?”
“We’ve got a motor home.” Alicia gestured indecisively behind her. “It’s parked out in front of the station. At least, it was.”
“Don’t worry,” Burnfingers told her. “They won’t bother it. They aren’t interested in machines unless they’re built in their own shops. Parked out front, you say? Since they have not figured out what to do with you yet, I am sure they have not figured out what to do with it. It should be as you left it.” He placed his damp mop in its slot on the bucket cart. “Now, I want you all to follow me.”
Frank put out a hesitant arm, felt it bounce off ribs that felt as if they were sheathed in stainless steel. “How can we do that? Maybe they won’t question your movements, but we’re not staff here. Surely they’ll stop us.”
“They must see us first. Then someone must make a decision. The lower echelons shy from doing that because if they make a wrong one it can get them in trouble. Demons and imps have their own punishments.” He nodded at the door. “My room is not far. There are a very few things I want to take with me. I do not plan on returning to this place. It may be that I am not breaking any rules by helping you, but I do not think it would be healthy for me to remain to find out.”
He cracked the door. The hot air that came pouring in made Frank flinch.
“You folks are lucky,” Burnfingers told them. “They turned up the air-conditioning for you.”
“Air-conditioning?” Alicia whispered, crowding close to her husband. “It must be a hundred and twenty in here.”
“Remember where you are, earth mother. For recreation some of the supervisors here put on winter clothes and go sandskiing in the Danakil Depression.” He opened the door wider, peering out into the hall. “Not a busy day. We’re lucky. Keep close behind me, but act unconcerned. If we should pass anyone, appear resigned to your fate. Show any unease and you will be lost.”
“Has anyone ever escaped from this place before?” Frank asked him.
“It is not common, but there are stories. Some years ago a minor trusty named Adolph tried to organize a big breakout. Only a few of his people made it and they returned here soon after. As punishment he spends Eternity cleaning bathrooms and waiting on tables in the Jewish section of Level Seven.” He continued talking softly and urgently as he opened the door the rest of the way.
“Quickly now, before someone comes to check on you.”
They exited into the stifling corridor and trailed Burnfingers closely. A minor female imp wearing the red-orange uniform of Administration appeared in a side corridor. She barely acknowledged Burnfingers’s existence, gave the family clustered close behind him a disinterested glance, and continued on her way.
Only when she’d turned a corner and vanished behind them did Burnfingers take a moment to explain her indifference.
“There is so much paperwork to keep up with, hardly anyone knows what the demon in the next cubicle is doing, let alone the ones in the next department. Act like you belong out here.” For the second time his gaze locked on Mouse. “You aren’t part of this family, are you?”
“I was hitchhiking. The Sonderbergs were kind enough to offer me a lift. I am on my way to the Vanishing Point to try and regulate the Spinner before it allows the fabric of existence to unravel completely.”
“Something to do with weaving, is it? You’ll have to tell me more. We Navajos make the finest rugs in existence, just the best there is. Especially the medicine rugs. I’ve seen some; a Two Gray Hills, a Seven Yeibichai, and a Teec Noc Pos, with plenty of the fabric of existence woven through them. Miracle Yazzie’s work would astonish you.” He turned left up a cross corridor. “One of her medicine rugs had dancing figures in it that shifted whenever you looked away. By the time you looked back the pattern was different.
“But pure fabric of existence, without wool or cotton, that is something I have never seen. If it is coming apart and they find out who you are and what you intend, they will try to stop you. Such unraveling would inspire jubilation in this place.”
“That’s what Mouse told us!” said Wendy in surprise.
Burnfingers Begay favored her with a wide smile. “All the more reason for helping you folks away from here.”
“It’s nothing to do with us,” said Alicia. “We’re just on our vacation.”
“Not anymore, you’re not.” Abruptly he halted and unlocked a door. “My room,” he said helpfully.
Frank didn’t know what to expect. A simple bed, perhaps a table and chair, possibly even a rug of the type he’d described to Mouse. All those were present, and more, but what took everyone’s breath away was the vast and highly detailed work of art that occupied the whole far wall.
Rummaging through a box he extracted from beneath the bed, Burnfingers noticed their rapt stares and commented indifferently.
“Sand painting. My father taught me how to do them.”
“It’s beautiful!” Alicia told him.
