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He turns off the movie, picks up his beer, and drinks. A trickle leaks out from the bottom of his neck and into his bucket.
“Ever since Lucifer left, the place has been falling apart, and I don’t mean the trash isn’t getting picked up. I mean Old Testament falling apart. Earthquakes. Wild fires. Hellion food riots. That’s something you don’t want to see. No one’s in charge. Mason has the army and local Pinkertons tied up with his war plans. It’s like he doesn’t give a rat’s ass how Hell is going to . . . you know. Hell.”
“Who’s working with him?”
“Most of Lucifer’s generals have defected. Abaddon, Wormwood, Mammon. They’re all in Pandemonium. General Semyazah is the only holdout. He doesn’t like the idea of being pushed around by a mortal. And he commands a shitload of troops. I don’t know if they can pull off the attack without him or his troops.”
I get a Malediction from my coat and pour myself a drink from a bottle of Jack on the nightstand.
“You know what’s weird? This whole thing between me and Mason—I can’t even remember what started it.”
“Aside from the fact that you’re exactly alike?”
“Fuck you.”
“The truth hurts doesn’t it, Tinker Bell?”
I rub my arm where the bullet grazed me. At least it helps me forget about the burns on my arms.
“I don’t get this Heaven and Hell thing of his at all,” I say. “It’s stupid enough wanting to grab Hell, but why would Mason want Heaven, too? The dry-cleaning bills on all those robes must be murder.”
Kasabian swigs his beer. It sounds like distant rain as it drains from his neck into the bucket.
“I don’t think Mason wants to be God. I think he just wants to be in control,” says Kasabian. “Look, man, just because you don’t want anything doesn’t mean the rest of us feel that way. You always hid or fucked around with your power. Mason took his seriously because he had to. He was part of a heavyweight Sub Rosa clan and Daddy wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Boo-hoo. The rich kid had it rough.”
“He was raised to take magic as seriously as anyone alive. He had to. He went to Hell, too, when he was a kid. He used to joke about it.”
I stare at him. Kasabian widens his eyes and nods, pleased he caught me off guard.
“What do you fucking mean, Mason was in Hell?”
Kasabian rolls his eyes.
“Not that Hell. Metaphorical Hell. Christ, how can you not know any of this? Mason was famous when he was a kid. His parents were even more famous.”
“I met his mom once. A dumpy lady with the Bettie Page hair and trophy-wife jewelry. She’s famous?”
“That was his aunt. His parents were dead and regular civilian court appointed an uncle and auntie dearest to take care of him. They were happy to move into the house in Beverly Hills and spend as much of Mason’s inheritance as they could. Maybe that’s why he burned the house when he disappeared. It covered up what he did to you and it sent the Beverly Hillbillies packing.”
“Tell me about Mason’s metaphorical Hell.”
Mason grunts. He’s calling me a hick without actually saying it out loud.
“It started with Mason’s father, old Ammit Faim. Ammit killed and hexed his way into running a big chunk of the California drug biz, and I don’t mean aspirin. Why would he cozy up to civilian dope peddlers? Because drugs are power and influence, and Ammit and Gabriella, Mason’s mom, were the ambitious type.”
He swigs from his beer.
“You know what assholes rich Sub Rosas are. Everything is about status and building a dynasty. None of the other clans were into the drug biz, so there wasn’t any competition. He imported the stuff. Set up operations to manufacture the complicated stuff and then cut and distributed it himself. He had a handle on Sub Rosa recreational drugs and most of the pot, meth, and Ecstasy in the state, but he didn’t control heroin and opium. So he decided to go to the source. Ammit and Gabriella packed up the kiddies, that’s Mason and his little sister—bet you didn’t even know he had a sister—and off the family went to Burma.”
“The drug connection has to be why Mason and Aelita dosed Hunter. Another joke or clue for me to figure out.”
“Shut up,” Kasabian says. “Ammit had enough connections to get a meeting with an opium general up north. He was an army officer who’d defected and took a lot of his troops with him. Formed his own private army and marched into the Golden Triangle. They paid the local farmers to raise poppies for them. The farmers didn’t care. Crops are crops and they made more money than growing rice.
“As w0">mmit and the general cut a deal for his product and for a while everything was champagne and Hot Pockets. Mason’s father had a good source of dope and Mom kept the books. The general had a real businessman selling his stuff and the money rolled in. The Faims’ power grew and so did the family’s status. Then it got ugly.
“The reason the general and his men had originally gone into the hills was to hunt down guerrilla armies in the mountains. The Faims were in the hills visiting their dope crop when the rebels attacked.
