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The Shonin reaches for the potions.
“Tell me your plan and maybe I’ll help.”
I hold the bottles out of his reach.
“First you tell me: Who are you working for? The Vigil or the world?”
He looks at me.
“I didn’t sit in a tomb for four hundred years to be a dog for bureaucrats. I work for the world.”
I give him back the vials and tell him my idea. He isn’t happy, but he doesn’t say no.
Another tremor shakes the building. People scream. Rubble shifts. I have to grab the Shonin and the book to keep them from falling on the floor. The lights go out.
I look up at the cracked ceiling. Lightning rips across the dark and something huge tears the sky open. Stars flutter and wink out. The sky around the rip is pitch black. It doesn’t last long, but something like smoke and bones slips out of the breach before it reseals itself.
The lights come back on.
“You’re with me on this?”
“Go. Do what you need to do,” says the Shonin.
With all the rubble around, there are plenty of nice shadows. I step through one and head Downtown.
I COME OUT by the elevators in Mr. Muninn’s penthouse. Lucifer’s penthouse. I’ll always have a hard time thinking of him as the Devil. I should never have guilted him into taking the job. He’s not cut out for it and now I might have to ask him to do something worse.
Chaya is by the big picture window watching the red rain fall. I clear my throat and he turns my way.
“How dare you break in here?”
“I didn’t break in. Mr. Muninn said I could come in whenever I wanted.”
“Muninn. You don’t even know his real name.”
“He goes by Muninn and that’s good enough for me.”
“Not for me.”
Chaya sweeps his hand across the room and I’m Peter Pan doing a clumsy air pirouette, before slamming into the far wall and hanging there like a mounted moose head.
“I’d say this is what all you ungrateful mortals deserve, but you’re not a mortal, are you? Still, you’re good practice.”
My throat closes up. I try to get some air. Can’t. The world shrinks to a very small dot and I can’t believe that after all I’ve been through I’m going to die because some metaphysical buzzkill is having a tantrum.
I hear Muninn’s voice.
“What’s all the commotion?” Then, “Chaya. Put him down now.”
“I’ve had it with this one. Don’t you see? Sooner or later he’ll turn the Godeater on us.”
“Let him go.?
?
I know what’s going on. I’m right on the edge of fainting, but Chaya wants me to enjoy every minute of this game, so he won’t let me. Even when he crushes my windpipe and all the air goes, I’m still awake and pinned to the wall like a greasy garage pinup.
Muninn steps in front of his brother and slaps him. Chaya is surprised enough to drop my sorry bones on the carpet. Muninn makes a small gesture at me and air floods into my lungs. I take a long, cool breath of it. Even stinking Hellion air tastes good right now.
