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“You want a cigarette?”
“That’s would be nice,” he says.
I hand him Mason’s lighter and the pack of Maledictions from my pocket. Listen to him rustle the pack and spark the lighter. He coughs at the first puff but keeps smoking. Maledictions are easier to take when you’re doomed.
“You were talking about a man named Mason trying to open Hell. I gather you stopped him.”
“Something like that.”
“And we killed an ass load of devil minions and dark magicians along the way,” says Candy.
Traven turns in his seat to look at her.
“You were there, too?”
She smiles.
“Stark invites me to all his massacres. Isn’t that right?”
She kicks the back of my seat. I look at her in the rearview mirror.
“You’re not helping.”
She smiles and settles down in her seat.
Traven puffs quietly on the Malediction, staring out the window as I steer us into the hills.
“So, because you stopped the sacrifice, you think that Hunter is in Avila?”
“Yeah. Mason and Aelita are behind this whole thing. They set the Qlipuffs on Hunter.”
“Qliphoth. Why not send the demon after you?”
“Because Mason has a truly fucked-up sense of humor. I knew Hunter’s brother and Mason would bust a gut using the kid to get me back up here. Aelita is helping just because she generally hates my guts.”
“I thought you said you saved her.”
“Yeah, when she found out I’m not exactly human, she got testy. A real racist.”
“You know, yesterday if someone told me I’d be driving to an exorcism with a nephilim I would have been surprised. Today, though . . .”
He trails off and smokes the Malediction.
I wish I could read minds like Lucifer. I can hear Traven’s heart beating fast. He’s feeling the mixture of cold and fear that’s excitement. He half knows what’s coming and he’s not sure if he can handle it. That’s me in the arena, waiting for the gates to open to see what I’m going up against in this episode of Kick Stark’s Ass. After a while you learn to live with the fear and ignore it, but it’s never a hundred percent gone. But some kinds of fear can make you more than you are. You face down something bigger than yourself and maybe come out of it with scars, but you’re a little stronger for it. There are other fears that are like a hole in your center where pieces of your soul go down the drain. That kind of fear has nothing to do with the knock-down-drag-out in the arena. That’s the horror of finally knowing how things really are. Who has the power and how they love tossing it around at C;Yt arouneveryone who doesn’t have it.
Every one of us, human and monster alike, lives with an angelic boot on our throats. But we don’t see it, so we forget about it and limp along doing the stupid little things that make up our stupid little lives. Then the boot comes down on your gut, squeezing the air out of your lungs and cracking your bones like old matchsticks. And you know the only reason it’s happening is because you’re not one of the celestials on high. You’re suffering with the worst curse of all. You’re alive. We’re just bugs on God’s windshield. That’s all we are. Annoying. Disposable. A dime a dozen.
Traven says, “You toss it all off so easily. Men enslaving angels. Humans challenging both Lucifer and God. And you say you’re a nephilim, something I don’t even know if I believe in.”
“Don’t worry, Father. I believe in you.”
He’s talking about me, but it’s not what he means. I can hear it in the almost inaudible tremors in his voice.
“Ask the question, Father.”
“What do I have to look forward to in Hell? Do they have special amusements for ex-priests?”
I should have gone easier on him. The poor guy is ex-communicated. To him that means he already has one foot in the coal cart to the hot country.
