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“You just told her not to have anything to do with me.”
“Until things settle down. Then go and bring her flowers and chocolates or drumsticks and scorpions, whatever it is she’d like. It’ll work itself out.”
“Nothing’s going to work itself out as long as Mason is back. And what the hell happened to your hand?”
“Nothing. It’s just a paper cut.”
“Mason did it. Oh shit. How fucked are we?”
“Get a grip. The Vigil has him. He can’t pull any heavy hoodoo in a prison protected by angelic tech.”
“I hope you’re right.”
I don’t tell him about the scorpions disappearing. I don’t want to think about it myself.
Kasabian says, “Not to sound selfish or anything, but do you think he’s going to come after me?”
“Probably. But he has a pretty busy schedule fucking with me right now, so I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“Okay. Thanks. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m going to go inside and lie in a fetal position for a while. Call me if the world doesn’t end.”
“You’re top of the list.”
He goes into his room, pulling the boxes back into place, leaning the door against them. It’s a sad, small gesture, but I understand it. I’d like to hibernate for a few years myself, but I’m stuck in the middle of this thing. I need to see Mr. Muninn, but Hell is the last place I want to go right now.
ONCE AGAIN I have to ask myself, Do I just show up at the worst time at the worst places or am I a shit magnet dragging all this horror down on everyone? Once again, I have no answer.
I used to curse God for deserting me when I was in Hell, and, oh yeah, deserting the world the rest of the time. Now I know him and, okay, I might have a little sympathy for his situation. But what does that get me? Me or anyone else? We’re still stuck in this second-rate carnival where the rides that don’t rip off a limb will sure as shit kill you. I’m not saying that the Angra would have built a better Earth or smarter or kinder people, but if Muninn and his brothers hadn’t butted in, maybe things would at least make sense. Like teeth. Whose idea was it to stick us with little porcelain mouth bones that chip, rot, and fall out? That’s not intelligent design. That’s your-boss’s-dumb-ass-nephew-intern-smoking-a-bowl-the-Friday-before-spring-break design. And there’s aneurysms, shopping malls, lawn furniture, cancer, Mickey Mouse, clinical depression, jellyfish, the Vigil, the Kissi, ambitious Hellions, all angels, and tofu.
Could the Angra have done worse? Yes, technically. They could have. But would they? We’ll never know because a grabby little shitbird shanghaied the entire damned universe. We get to live with all of his mistakes. Hell, we are his mistakes. The idiot dropped a glass sphere full of divine light on one of his half-formed worlds and life just sort of happened. We’re not God’s stepchildren. We’re the cigarette burns in the living room carpet.
And with all that, I’m inclined to cut the fucker some slack because he knows exactly how badly he’s fucked up. We’ve got that much in common. He thought he locked out the Angra and I thought I buried Mason. Maybe Muninn and I can go halfsies on a few sessions with a life coach. Learn to set goals. Visualize our success. Take over a Denny’s franchise in Fresno. Cash in on the hungry truckers. Easy money and no one gets hurt.
Who am I kidding? A month of that and I’d burn down the place for the insurance money. Hit the road with Candy and not look back. Like Doc and Carol McCoy in a cartoon version of The Getaway.
Only that’s not going to happen. And the Angra aren’t coming back to fix things. And the God brothers aren’t going to square anything with them or us. We’ll be lucky if we get out of this with any skin left, because whether it’s Muninn or Ruach or Zhuyigdanatha or Lamia, we don’t count. No matter which God is in charge, we’re bugs on his windshield. Always were. Always will be. Amen.
I step through a shadow and come out in Hell.
I don’t want to come out in Mr. Muninn’s room after tracking the place up last time, so I step out into the palace lobby. The blood rain pounds down on the windows, as heavy as ever.
The first thing I want to know is if he and his brothers are all right. The second thing I want to know is how to deal with Mason. I get part of the answer to my first question without moving an inch.
There’s blood everywhere, and not the kind tracked in from outside.
The lobby is cordoned off with iron grates, like cop crime-scene tape.
In the center of the lobby is a dried patch of rust-colored blood maybe four feet across. Crimson streaks around it from where his attackers stepped in his blood. I can picture the scene. Roman-style mayhem. A bunch of Hellions taking down a Caesar. They surround him from all sides when he comes into the lobby. The sap is one of the God brothers, which makes him Lucifer’s kin. Unreachable. Untouchable. Only he’s not. How many Hellions with knives would you need to take down a piece of God? A lot, from the look of things. Dotted round the lobby are ten, maybe fifteen explosions of black Hellion blood and gristle like shotgun Rorschach blots. Whoever killed him is as dead as he is.
I go to the elevator and touch the brass plate. Nothing happens. I’m not Lucifer anymore. Why should it? I take out the black blade and slip it under the edge of the plate. Feel around inside for contacts or hamsters in a cage. Something that runs the lift. After a few seconds I see a spark and hear something sizzle. The elevator door slides open and I get inside. I do the same trick to the brass plate inside the car and up we go to the penthouse.
I’m twitchy with that hyper adrenaline feeling like right before a fight or when you see the surgeon coming out of the operating room frowning. My fingers tingle and I want to hit something to calm down, but after seeing those exploded bodies in the lobby, I curb that quick. Still, I don’t know who or what is waiting for me upstairs, so I slip the na’at out of my coat and get it ready to spring open.
When the car reaches the penthouse, the door slides open. I listen and sniff the air for a second before stepping into the room.
