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“Fuck that. Where do I go?”
“To Gan Eden.”
“The Garden of Eden? I definitely remember burning that to the ground.”
“Not that Eden. The evil, mocking one Maleephas built here. It lies just behind the ruins of his palace. You’ll find the Lux Occisor hanging from a tree in the center.”
“Just like an angel,” I say, shaking my head. “Now I know why you don’t want to touch it. You don’t want to handle one of the big man’s great fuck-ups.”
Johel takes a step in my direction, but Vehuel holds up a hand to stop him.
“Will you retrieve the sword and fulfill your destiny?”
I give them all a big toothy smile.
“It must twist you up inside knowing trash like me can do something you can’t.”
“Then you’ll go?”
“Yeah. I’ll go. Just so I can tell you to kiss my ass when I bring it back.”
“You’ve made a wise choice,” says Vehuel.
“Careful. You’re going to talk me out of it.”
“You don’t have to go alone,” says Alice. “I’ll come with you.”
I look at the other angels, then back at her. “No. You’ll be tainted meat like me if you do. And you have to live with these pricks. I don’t.”
“Be careful.”
“I always am.”
“No, you never are.”
“Just this once, then.”
The Magistrate hasn’t said a word this whole time. He just stands there like a mantis, all insect patience and killer instincts. I wonder how much of this story he knew? Maybe all of it. Certainly enough to go along with dragging the gun all this way.
I nod to Traven and look around for Cherry, but she’s gone. Probably off rattling cookie jars looking for pennies in empty houses.
I walk into the ruins.
For a palace, the place isn’t that impressive. I’ve seen bigger mansions in Beverly Hills. Still, considering it was probably the first thing the first fallen angels built after their nine-day tumble from Heaven, it’s all right. I step over fallen beams and a few blackened sticks of furniture. Half a door on my right. Melted glass from the windows. It glazes a pile of blackened bones like a thick coating of ice. I kick through the debris to get a better look and uncover a whole skeleton. Is this what’s left of Maleephas? Why is there anything left at all? He should have blipped out of existence here and slid down to Tartarus. Unless it’s not him, but the remains of whatever hapless fallen angels first built the palace, long before Tartarus even existed. If that’s true, this place is even older than I thought. Maybe old enough that, like Vehuel said, even angels could forget about it.
Most of the grounds around the palace are as fried as the house. There are more bones out back. Maybe I was right. It could be a graveyard back here, an honored burial place at the first palace for the workers who built it. What a way to end up. From sitting at Mr. Muninn’s right hand to a pile of bones in a barbecued condo in the heart of Nowhereville. At least the beetles got a good meal out of the whole sad wreck of a rebellion.
Okay—no more maudlin shit until I find the Light Killer. I wonder if it would be all right to kill the Magistrate when I hand the sword over to the angels. I might have to. He isn’t going to let it go easily. At least there’s that to look forward to. Now I just have to find the damn thi
ng.
Finally, at the top of a blackened hill, I come to a fence. The fire from the palace came most of the way up here, but it didn’t get past the big iron gate sealing the place shut. The lock is so old and rusty that it shatters with one good kick. I go inside, and sure enough, I’m back in Eden. Of course, the plants here aren’t as Hello Kitty bright as the other Eden. The stunted trees are gnarled and bent. The few flowers left look like living razor blades and little meat grinders where the scattered remains of beetles fertilize the fetid soil. Pale vines follow me as I walk, cooing and sighing, hoping I have oatmeal for brains and will get close enough that they can drag me off and eat me at their leisure. And at the center of all this treacherous merriment is a skeleton tree. It’s sturdier than the others we’ve seen. Taller and thicker. Its branches are as big around as my leg.
And hanging from one of them is a golden sword.
It’s a little hard to believe at first and, honestly, a little disappointing. I mean, after all we’ve been through, all the attacks and traps, I was expecting a Sphinx to ask me some riddles or at least a few shambling zombies. But there’s nothing here but me and a dumb tree.
Fuck it. Let’s get the pigsticker and get out of here. I’ve got people to kill.
