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I look up in time to see Chernovog scrambling up and away on all fours. I get to my feet, trying to see where he went, when he jumps onto my back from behind. I spin and push back, driving him into the hot metal on the front of the boiler. Chernovog squirms a little, bites down, and tries to take a piece of my ear. When I shake h toen I shim off, he disappears.
I don’t even get a chance to look for him this time. He rolls past me and hits my leg with the wrench. I slash down with the Gladius but miss him by an inch. Then he’s on my back again. Then gone. He hits my arm with the wrench. Slams into my chest and drives me down on my back. Gone again. The prick’s actually getting faster. I get to my knees and use the railing to pull myself to my feet. Between the steam and the sweat in my eyes, I can’t see a thing. I turn in circles, swinging the Gladius randomly at the steam just trying to keep him off. The angel in my head says something terrible and I want to shove him back into the dark, but I’m afraid he might be right.
I’m playing Chernovog’s game. And I can’t beat him.
I slash the bars off the side of the platform with the Gladius. I’m exhausted. The steam makes it almost impossible to breathe. I catch glimpses of Chernovog shooting back and forth on the face of the boiler. I let the Gladius go out. Is it technically playing possum when you’re about to do something that might amount to suicide?
I know what he’s going to do and I wait until I see him do it. An empty spot in the steam streaks toward me as Chernovog leaps from high up, hoping to land on me and crush my chest. I bark some arena fighting hoodoo, holding off on the last syllable until Chernovog is a foot above me. Then I say it and roll off the platform as the air turns to fire.
Who needs Mason? It feels like I just blew up the universe myself. I’ve never done the air-burst hex inside before. I figured it might work since the only things not ghosts already are Chernovog, Semyazah, and me. After you set off a hex like that, the trick is to stay out of its way. Falling from the furnace, I stay just ahead of the blast. I chant one more arena hex and make an air pocket to cushion my fall. It isn’t exactly like landing on a feather bed, but it keeps my bones from turning to butterscotch pudding.
I still can’t see a thing. Steam is everywhere and the heat from the furnace feels as hot as ever. Souls howl and scramble away from the explosion. In a few minutes, the steam drifts away and the temperature cools. Like a magic trick, the boiler emerges from the mist. It’s caved in on itself, the bottom twisting as the face and overhead pipes came down. The bottom is twisted slag and the transit pipes droop from the ceiling like metal stalactites. Chernovog and his drones are gone daddy gone.
Cold air and a white celestial light streams down one of the pipes and lights up Tartarus for miles. I don’t even bother checking what’s on the other end of that one. I hope they have electric blankets in Heaven because it’s going to get cold tonight.
The light from the second pipe is bright, but flickers and is colder than Heaven’s glow. That’s the way to the stars and earth. I hope Neshamah, Muninn, and Ruach up in Heaven and the other two brothers heard what just happened here. Cleanup on aisle two, boys.
Nothing comes out of the third pipe. No light. No air. No nothing. I crawl up into the bottom. There’s a breeze, but it flows almost imperceptiblyer.mpercep upward. The angel feels it long before I do. But I know what’s important. Overhead, the ground is blown open. Beyond it are rolling black clouds lit underneath by fires in the hills. Hell’s half acre never looked so good.
I yell, “Semyazah!”
He stands under the pipe and peers into the sky.
“I never thought I’d see the sky again.”
“You can write a sonnet about it later. Get up here and get climbing.”
I manifest the Gladius, shove it into the pipe, and pull it out quickly. I do it again at an angle to the other hole and again a few feet higher. I put my foot into the first hole and my hand in the second, pulling myself up. I punch climbing holes all the way to the top.
When I get out I can see the Fourth Street Bridge. Sweet. It’s close enough that Medea Bava had to feel the explosion. I hope the falling sparks kill her pretty lawn.
Semyazah yells down the pipe for the others to start up. Lurkers are scrambling up the sides of the pipe, holding on like geckos. They reach the top and run into the gloom, whooping as they go.
Scrub trees and dry weeds growing along the sides of the railroad tracks are burning. A pile of abandoned railroad ties makes a pretty bonfire. Too bad there aren’t any marshmallows in Hell.
“Come on, General. Let’s get you to Pandemonium.”
He looks around at the industrial waste.
“How? We’re halfway across Hell.”
“See those nice fat shadows by the railroad ties? I’ll show you a shortcut.”
We go to the fire, but before taking him into the Room of Thirteen Doors, I stop.
“What happened to Uriel? I know Aelita killed him, so he must have ended up in Tartarus. If he’s still down there, he would have found me.”
Semyazah nods but doesn’t look right at me.
“I wasn’t there when Uriel came to Tartarus. I heard that the Gobah were waiting for him. He was taken to the furnace immediately.”
That’s pretty much what I imagined. Aelita’s a planner. She’d have everything set up in advance. Smart woman. Dead woman.
I shake my head, trying not to show anything other than information received.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
We step into a shadow.
