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When the flask is filled to the top, I tighten the cap and slip it inside my coat.
“Dead, huh? That sucks. How are your legs? Any pain yet?”
Mammon shakes his head.
“None, thank you.”
“It’ll start soon.”
Metal scrapes near the wall.
I snap out the na’at to its full length and twist it so barbs sprout along its length. A scared, muffled voice screams where the na’at is pointing. It sounds like it’s coming from a weird metal sculpture across the room. It’s about six feet tall and covered in hand-hammered silver in roughly the outline of a human body. It looks like something from Muninn’s discount bin. I get closer, letting the na’at keep some distance between us.
There are openings in the sculpture, like eye slits. There’s movement behind them. I shove the na’at right up to the opening. The muffled screaming starts up. When I get closer I can see eyes inside the helmet. They’re brown. The pupils wide and dilated with fear. They’re human.
I point at the caged man.
“Who’s the gimp?”
Mammon pushes himself up a little higher on his elbows.
“That’s Mr. Kelly. Say hello, Mr. Kelly.”
The Hellion upper classes love to talk about the damned with mock formality.
The slaved soul in the metal restraints squeezes out what I guess is a muffled greeting.
“Why’s he locked up? Is he dangerous?”
“Only to your kind. He’s a murderer.”
“Is that what’s in this year? Collecting killers instead of baseball cards?”
He tightens his lips in a look of mild disgust.
“It was Mason’s idea. He issued senior officers ‘interesting’ souls so we might become more acquainted with human minds. The one he gave me was a bore, so I put him in storage.”
The soul is in something like a Hellion suit of armor welded inside an external cage. I put away the na’at and start slicing through the bars with the black blade. With a little force the bars come off easily. When I get the front clear, I start slicing off the armor.
“Just out of curiosity, where’s General Semyazah these days? I know he’s on the run, but I also know you have spies. Where’s he hiding?”
“You admire the fool, don’t you? ‘Semyazah, the lone Hellion general brave enough to hold out against Mason Faim, the dread usurper of Lucifer’s throne!’ ”
“I just asked where he was. I don’t need a campaign speech.”
Mammon pulls himself around so we’re looking straight at each other again.
“Remember the private joke I mentioned? I’ll share it with you after all. When you so subtly threatened me with Tartarus, I laughed because that’s where your hero is. Semyazah is Tartarus’s newest and I daresay most famous guest.”
If Mammon is telling the truth then the game is over. There’s no game at all. With Semyazah out of the way, another general will have claimed his troops and there won’t be anyone to stop Mason from launching his war. It was a long shot that Semyazah could do anything anyway. Now even that slim chance might be gone. Mammon could be lying, but the first thing I have to do is find Alice. I don’t have time to run all over Hell checking out Mammon’s bullshit. I wonder what happens to a non-damned soul if it’s killed in Hell? If I can’t find Alice in time and Mason murders her again, will she end up in Tartarus? Or worse, she might be saved from Tartarus but end up too far from Heaven to find her way back, and wander in the Limbo between them forever.
“Who killed Semyazah?”
Mammon shakes his head.
“That’s the best part. You inspired Semyazah’s fate. He wasn’t killed. Mason said that we should send him to Tartarus alive, and so we did.”
What a bunch of gold-plated idiots we are, Hellions and humans alike. Somewhere God is laughing at us. We’re his private joke with himself. Why didn’t he just wipe us all out and start over? Maybe it’s more fun watching us run around bouncing off the walls.
