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“See? You always have a plan.”
“Death can’t hold me.”
“I never said I could.”
Samael gives me a sympathetic pat on the back and I go inside.
The door to Hell rumbles closed behind me.
Home sweet home.
Only it isn’t.
Where are the sorting pens for new souls? For that matter, where are the other new souls?
And where the hell is Pandemonium?
I turn in a slow circle, looking for familiar landmarks, but come up empty.
Where did Samael leave me? Is this a favor? Mr. Muninn’s punishment for wrecking his playpen? Or is it someone’s idea of a joke?
Cupping my hands, I yell, “Olly olly oxen free.”
Nothing comes back, not even an echo.
There’s nothing but jagged lava peaks overlooking a dusty valley. My boots crunch on razor-sharp stones as I walk around the ledge where I came out.
Something hisses behind me.
I whirl around, my hand going under my coat for my na’at. But it’s not there.
Right. I’m dead. All of my weapons are back with my body. It doesn’t matter. The sound behind me was just a fine rain of black stone slipping down the face of the mountain.
I pull up my left sleeve. My Kissi arm is gone too. It’s all me in here, just one more asshole soul out for a stroll in paradise.
Far across the valley, a dust plume rises into the dim sky.
My hand goes in my pocket for my phone, but it isn’t there either. Dumb move. A stupid reflex. I’ll have to watch that if I’m going to be here for a while, and I have a bad feeling I’m going to be.
To my left are the remains of an old trail cut into the lava stone. It looks steep and slick and dangerous, but from what I can see, it’s the only way down.
Unless my eyes are playing tricks on me, the dust plume is heading in my direction, which raises all kinds of fun questions. Is it a storm? A lost pack of stampeding hellhounds? Maybe it’s the damned souls of old Rockettes rehearsing a new show.
Yeah. Let’s go with that.
A couple of steps in the direction of the trail, my foot comes down on something soft. It’s a pack of Maledictions. I pick it up and put it in my pocket. Now I know someone is fucking with me. They left me smokes, but no way to light them since my lighter is back with my na’at in L.A. Nothing I can do about it now.
I head down the trail.
The dust plume is definitely moving toward me. It looks less like the Rockettes and more like a hurricane with every passing second. Nothing else moves. Everything in the v
alley is dead except for that roiling dust. It’s hypnotic. Kind of pretty in an End of Days kind of way. I suppose I could stay up here on this peak and be nowhere or take another chance and be somewhere. Maybe I’ll get lucky and the wind will carry me home to Dorothy and the Tin Man.
I walk down the mountain, heading straight into the storm.
