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“The general and his men were pros, but a bunch of guerrilla groups got together and all attacked at the same time. There were so damn many of them, they wiped out the general’s army.
“These rebels were some mean Khmer Rouge–type pricks. Once the fighting was over, one by one the guerrillas cut off the heads of all the general’s men. Eventually someone found Mason and the kiddies. Normally Ammit could have magicked the family out of there, but the general had local witches lay down all kinds of antihoodoo spells around their camp.
“It must have been a pretty good shock for those Burmese grunts to find a whole Leave It to Beaver family up in the mountains. Normally in a situation like that, the local army will ransom off Americans for cash. But not the rebel general. He took one look at these wealthy white foreigners financing his enemy and he started to kill them on the spot. But an old shaman stopped him. The guerrillas might have been fighting about politics and money, but they brought their old tribal magic and religion with them. Supposedly the old man made a beeline for Mason and took him aside. He pawed at the scared kid, checking him out, and the shaman saw something special in Mason. After the shaman and the general talked, the old man took Mason while soldiers hacked his whole family to death with machetes.
“The Faims weren’t slackers when it came to magic, but the witches’ spells worked and they couldn’t fight back.
“When the shaman was done blasting their asses around the camp, the soldiers had fun hacking them to pieces. They killed Mason’s little sister last. The Burmese have these big dogs up in the mountains and the rebels use them as war dogs. Mason got to watch as the general let his dogs loose on the big pile of hamburger that used to be his family.”
“I don’t believe a word of this.”
“You’ll like this part. It gets weirder,” says Kasabian. “People eventually found out about the dead white people in the hills, but not about the little boy. Mason is gone. Off the radar for two or three years. UN workers found him when a local militia shot up one of the rebel groups.
“Mason got passed down the food chain to the U.S. embassy. Imagine what that was like for a kid. In just a few days he goes from eating bugs and learning ancient fucked-up tribal magic all the way back to L.A.
“That’s when the aunt and uncle show up. Ammit had put together a tidy little nest egg from his drug busiounis drugness, and with Mason only being around ten at the time, the court set him up with a brand-new family.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me any of this?”
“Because you’re an asshole and you never wanted to know. Listen. The best part is coming.
“Mason settles into the whole home-sweet-home thing. He goes to private Sub Rosa school. He has money. He has nice clothes. But no friends. Nothing. He didn’t talk to anyone, especially his new family. At school, he gets the same kind of generic magic training we all got. Only Mason is like you. Kind of a freak. He showed them the shaman’s stuff. Dark magic they’d never seen before. They graduated him early just to get him out of there.
“After graduation he disappears again. He was gone for three months, and when he came home he wouldn’t tell anyone if he’d been kidnapped or ran away or anything. But no one cares because all of a sudden he’s acting like a normal kid. They let him back into upper grade school. He made friends and generally acted the way any idiot schoolkid was supposed to act.
“A few months later stories started popping up on TV about arms smuggling along the Burmese border and how there must have been a bad accident. Like a big ammo dump or even a small tactical Chinese nuke had gone off. The land in one area was fried. And part of a mountain was gone, like it was scooped out with an ice-cream scoop. The funny thing was no one saw or heard any explosions. It all got hushed up pretty quick by the local government because whatever happened had wiped out an entire rebel army along with their village, their families, their crops, and their animals. There was nothing but ashes for miles.”
Kasabian finishes the beer and tosses the empty into an overflowing trash can.>“Is that blood on your jacket? You got shot again. Are you a bullet magnet or just have a fetish for never wearing the same clothes twice?”
I don’t want to see how Las Montañas del Gehenna turns out. I decided a long time ago that the girl makes it home and I don’t want to find out I’m wrong. I turn off the set.
“Hey! I’m watching that.”
“You can finish it later. I just found out that Aelita is mixed up in this Hunter thing.”
He nods.
“I’m not surprised. I think she’s got something going with Mason, too. An angel’s been sneaking in and out of Hell, coming in from way out in the badlands where even Hellions don’t go. Who else is crazy enough to deal with Mason but her?”
“They’re the ones that probably sent the Qlipots or whatever they’re called. But why go after Hunter? And why get me involved? Maybe they’re trying to railroad me into a trap.”
“Were you just trying to say ‘Qliphoth’? Look at you. You learned a big-boy word.”
“Aelita can’t have hit God already. That would shake the whole universe. They’re not ready to invade Heaven, are they?”
“No way. Generals are still arguing over plans. Troops are still coming in from all over Hell. No way they’re ready.”
“Why would she be tiptoeing down to Hell?”
“Mason just got hold of something that’s got him pretty excited. It’s big, too. Like an oversized gold coffin carved with all kinds of binding runes and hexes. Aelita might have smuggled something out of Heaven. Maybe a weapon.”
“Or something to help Mason make a new key to the Room of Thirteen Doors?”
“More likely something like the Druj Ammun. A passkey to a secret back door in Heaven. She’s supposed to have allies upstairs, so it wouldn’t surprise me.”
“What if she didn’hol didnt come straight from Heaven? If she sent that demon after Hunter, maybe she has more demons. Could she and Mason be raising a demon army?”
Kasabian smirks.
