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“You know, for someone people keep telling us is a madman, you don’t sound all that crazy. Say something batshit for me so I know it’s really you.”
Silence. The cold wind blows in from a door at the back of the room.
“Samael is back in Hell. I don’t know if that’s exactly crazy, but it’s pretty funny. Also, one of you isn’t what he seems.”
No shit, Casper. It’s a real effort not to look at Delon.
I say, “I know all about that. How do you know about Samael?”
“The same way I know when and where you got that nasty Kissi arm.”
Slowly, he comes into focus, like an image on a video screen. First, the general shape forms and then it finally sharpens.
He’s entirely green—head, hair, and skin. And maybe a little taller than his brothers. Definitely not as round. Calling him buff would be stretching it, but by the family standards, the guy is Captain America.
“Fuck me. I should have known one of you was behind this bullshit. Does Muninn know you’re here?”
The ghost’s face splits into a wide grin. Not ghost. Mr. Muninn’s almost-twin. One of the God brothers.
“The five of us share some thoughts and knowledge in common, but we each have our secrets. This is one of mine.”
I get up and flick the Malediction into the pool a couple of feet from him.
“Hey, Father. Let me make some introductions. Father Traven, meet God. God, meet Father Traven.”
Traven’s eyes narrow at me. He can’t tell if I’m kidding or not. But he’s a smart enough guy and we’ve talked enough and he’s read enough arcana to work out the rest for himself.
“You’re God?” he says.
“A piece of the pie, yes. You look disappointed. Turn that around, multiply it by a million, and you’ll know how I feel about you people.”
I stand next to Traven in case he decides to freak out or faint.
“Remember how I told you that God had a nervous breakdown and broke into little pieces? The Mr. Muninn part is in Hell. Ruach is driving everyone crazy in Heaven. Neshamah is dead. That leaves two. Which one are you?”
“Nefesh,” he says, and mimes doffing a hat. “The smart one. The one no one even looks for because he’s an incorporeal, crazy old spook in a town teeming with them.”>Soon the air begins to clear. The echoes of the crash and the crazies’ screams fade away. There’s just the gentle sound of Vidocq cursing in French and Brigitte meeting him curse for curse in Czech.
“Who the fuck was that?” says Candy. “More Shoggots?”
“No. It was the construction workers. Some of them still had their hard hats and work shirts.”
“What happened to them?”
“They fucking invoked something on those stairs and then Norris and his boys invoked it again. Maybe they were going to change too, but they didn’t get the chance.”
Traven says, “Is that madness going to happen to us?”
“We didn’t walk straight down, so maybe we got around the hex.”
“Who would build something like that in here?”
“Right now I don’t really care. Let’s get out of here.”
Delon comes back and leads us to another staircase, this one with no amusing markings on it. Sore and bloody, we head down.
Right into a dead end. There’s no wreckage covering a possible exit. No windows or crawl spaces. Just a solid wall ahead and a small pile of debris behind.
“Paul,” I say.
