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Geryon is doing even worse than I am. He’s frozen by the side of the truck, turning around and around in horrified circles like he’s trying to stomp shit into wine. He only moves when soldiers arrive with tree limbs and push him out of the way so they can wedge them under the back tires.
“How are you doing, Geryon?”
He doesn’t answer. Just stands with his arms crossed in front of him, watching the soldiers try to pry the wheels from the sludge.
“Why don’t you tell me more about Henoch?”
He can’t answer. Geryon is gone. I might have broken him.
Something moves past my leg.
“Hey. Didn’t you say one of the monsters out here was a kind of snake?”
He looks at me blankly, and then nods.
“Why do you ask?” he says. Then disappears, yanked below the surface by something underneath.
A dozen nearby soldiers drop the branches they’ve been maneuvering and pull their sidearms, firing blind into the river.
“Stop!”
It takes a few seconds but they do.
“Feel with your feet. Use your hands. Find him.”
They’re not happy but the only Lucifer they know just gave them an order. Instead of rebelling and stringing me up like Il Duce’s corpse, they do what I say, reaching under the muck and feeling for Geryon.
Elephant Man, still above us in the truck, points and grunts.
A round hump breaks the surface of the river. Six soldiers reach down to grab it. They pull out one end of what looks more like a fat ten-foot earthworm than a snake. The snake is blind but its jaws are wide and round, like a lion-toothed lamprey. A few feet down from the head, the snake’s body is wrapped around Geryon’s waist.
“Grab him. That’s an order.”
This time no one gives a good goddamn what Lucifer has to say. They’re too busy firing their pistols at the snake’s head. They’re hitting it, too, with what should be kill shots. Maybe the thing really is more like a worm than a snake, because for all the hits it’s not going down. This thing must have the nervous system of a chicken burrito.
I grab the na’at from inside my coat, extend it into a spear, and shove it into the snake’s body a couple of feet above Geryon. The snake whips around in my direction and takes a couple of blind nips at the air like it’s not sure where the wound came from.
I twist the na’at’s grip and it goes slack. I flick it out like a whip and it goes around the snake’s body twice. Twist the grip again and the na’at is as rigid as plate steel. The whip loops dig deep into the snake’s flesh, drawing a dirty white ribbon of pus-like blood. It screams and lunges for the soldiers. They keep firing and I keep pulling. Its neck twists to the side as I cut through its thick jelly-like flesh. Geryon is holding on to the snake’s body, trying to keep his head above the filthy river. I dig in my feet and give one last, hard pull. The snake stiffens and lets out a piercing scream that’s like getting an ice pick through my ears. And its head slides off the body, trailing luminous insides into the muck. I reach down and pull Geryon to his feet.
“Nice job, Saint Francis. Were you trying to romance that thing?”
Back at the truck I help him up and Elephant Man pulls him inside.
The troops are all looking at me. I don’t know if it’s because they’re impressed or because they’ve never seen their boss covered in enough shit to fertilize all the weed fields in Humboldt County. I put the na’at back in my coat and say, “Get those branches and your asses in gear so we can get out of here.”
Fifteen minutes later we’re moving again. A couple of minutes after that we crest a hill and it starts to rain. Shit streams off the windshield. I roll my window and stick my head outside, letting the water wash my face clean.
Geryon pulls his hands from his filthy face and quietly says, “Oh no.”
“What?”
“It’s the last ring. Regret.”
Yes, I was stupid enough to think being Lucifer would be just a little fun.
The troops have the rear door open. Some lean out and others jump, running along behind the truck and letting the rain wash them clean. Other soldiers pull them back in, then jump out to take their place.
It doesn’t look like regret to me.
