“No. One of the others. I can’t remember which is which.”
“Is he alive?”
“The rain’s messed up all kinds of stuff down there. I can’t see everything.”
“I might have to go Downtown. Maybe Muninn will have some ideas on dealing with Mason.”
Kasabian disappears into his room.
“Good luck with that. If you don’t see me for a while, I’ll be in here having a stroke.”
“You could come to my place,” says Fairuza.
I shake my head.
“No, he can’t. And don’t let anyone know you’re hanging around with Prince Valiant over there. If Mason finds out, he might send someone after you.”
“Who the hell is Mason Faim?” says Fairuza.
“You know all that stuff I told you about Stark?” says Kasabian. “Mason is worse. One time when he was still in school he used magic to blow the top off a mountain in Thailand, all to get back at a magic man that did him wrong. He killed a whole village. All the men, women, and kiddies and didn’t blink an eye. That’s who Mason is. And on a personal note, Mason is the guy who killed me.”
“I thought Stark cut your head off.”
“Yeah, but that was just my head. He didn’t, like, kill me. That was Mason.”
Fairuza picks up her bag and gets her raincoat off the peg by the door.
“I’m sorry. I’m leaving.”
“No. Wait,” says Kasabian.
She holds up a silencing finger.
“Listen. I could maybe deal with the robot thing, but more crazy killers from Hell? Forget it. Sorry, Kas. I’ll see you around.”
She goes out into the rain. The wind slams the door behind her.
“You happy?” says Kasabian. “Fairuza was as close to a love life as I was ever going to have.”
“Relax. She’s just freaked out. Give her some time to calm down.”
“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.
“Mr. Muninn?”
When no one answers I say it again.
Footsteps click down the hall, coming my way. Then nothing. Silence for maybe thirty seconds.
“Are you going to hide in the elevator all night or are you going to come have a drink with me and Father?”
It’s Samael. At least his voice. I step out of the elevator with the na’at held high. Move around the corner until I can see the whole living room.
Samael is there. His suit isn’t quite as sharp as usual. His smile is faint and gone in a second, like he was as uncertain about me as I was about him. I put the na’at back in my coat. There are stains on his shirt and trouser cuffs. Black blood.
“Come to comfort the bereaved? What a softie you’ve become. Everyone is in the library.”
Samael starts down the hall.
“Which brother was it?”
He doesn’t turn around.
“Nefesh.”
I follow him down the hall.
This stinks. I’m the one who wanted Nefesh to come down to Hell in the first place. I told him he’d be safe here with Muninn. We met when he was hiding in a Roman bath at the bottom of the Kill City mall. Who knows how long he’d been there, hiding in noncorporeal form? Pretending he was nothing more than a mad old ghost. Then I came along with some friends and got him to tell us where Aelita had hidden the 8 Ball. I told him to give up the ghost game. Grow a pair and head Downtown for some face time with his brother and, most of all, safety. Things were bad enough back then that a piece of God took advice from me. Things must be even worse now if all it took were a few legionnaires to bring him down.
I follow Samael into Lucifer’s enormous library. Muninn is sitting on one end of a long velvet couch I used to sleep on. At the other end of the couch is his twin, only instead of being black like Muninn, he’s blue. Everything. Clothes. Skin. Hair. The works.
“James,” says Muninn. “What a nice, if ill--timed, surprise. Let me introduce my brother Chaya.”
It’s Muninn’s house, so I want to be polite. I put out my hand. Chaya doesn’t move. In the arena, I had Hellions, beasts, and other lost souls look at me with hate in their eyes, but none of them comes close to Blue Boy. I pull back my hand.
“So this is him,” says Chaya. “The monster who kills monsters.”
“Be nice, Chaya,” says Muninn. “James is a guest.”
“I don’t remember inviting him. And I know it wasn’t you. Was it you, Samael?”
“No, Father,” he says.
Chaya looks at me.
“That’s not a guest. That’s an interloper.”
“James knew Nefesh,” Samael says. “Perhaps he’s here to pay his respects.”
“Yes. That,” I say. But no one is buying it. “Okay. Truth is, I didn’t know which one of you it was that got hurt—-”
“Killed,” says Chaya.
“Right. Killed. I wanted to check in and see what the situation is.”
Chaya says, “He wanted to know if we’re all right. What a sweet murderer you are.”
“Truth is, I was really checking on these other two. You I don’t know from a hellhound’s asshole.”
Chaya’s face turns kind of a dark fucked--up purple, which I guess is him turning red.
“Listen to him, Muninn. You let a mortal speak to you like that?”
“In case you haven’t noticed,” I say, “I’m not exactly a mortal.”
“No. You’re Abomination. Why didn’t we kill you as an infant?”
“Maybe because you spent a billion years trying to find your ass with two hands and a sextant? I mean, you can’t even keep your own angels in line. What chance did you have of finding one little kid?”
Chaya doesn’t say a word and I’m pretty sure he’s working up to a good smiting when Samael tugs on my arm.
“Why don’t you take James to the kitchen,” says Muninn. “I’ll be along in a few minutes.”
Samael heads out of the library, dragging me by the arm like a dog that just shit on the Pietà.
I half expect him to chew me out, when he lets go of my arm and says, “Thank you. I couldn’t take one more minute of that old maid’s squawking. He hasn’t shut up since he got here.”
“Sure. It was all part of my plan.”
“Of course it was.”
In the kitchen, Samael finds an open bottle of wine and pours us both a drink. He raises his glass in a brief toast and downs it. I sniff mine. Hellion wine. If Aqua Regia is battery acid, the local Cabernet tastes like the runoff at a Hellion slaughterhouse. I take a polite sip, but that’s as far as I’m willing to go.
“Having three fathers here was bad enough,” Samael says. “Then one gets killed and it’s the wrong one.”
“Sorry.”
Samael pours himself another drink.
“At least you’re here to be Chaya’s punching bag for a while. Ever since he got here he’s been going at me the way he went after you tonight. He’ll never forgive me for rebelling.”
“Fathers can be like that.”
“I seem to remember you having some kind of father drama.”
“Yeah. He tried to kill me. Good thing he was a lousy shot.”
Samael sits down at the kitchen counter.
“I remember. And he still got into Heaven. That’s got to sting. Now imagine having to sit next to him while he lists off all your faults for everyone to hear over and over and over for eternity. That’s my life.”
“I guess we both got lucky escaping to Hell.”
“As you can see, even Hell isn’t an escape anymore.”
Samael shakes his head, gets up, and prowls the kitchen looking for more wine. I swirl mine in my glass like I’m contemplating its enticing bouquet. The reek just about makes my eyes water.
“So, what happened to Nefesh?”
“Exactly what it looks like. He was approached by what he thought were loyal soldiers. But they were part of Merihim and Deumos’s suicide cabal. They were all over him. He didn’t stand a chance.”
“I don’t understand. Aelita needed the 8 Ball when she killed the first brother, Neshamah. How could a bunch of grunts kill Nefesh with a few knives?”
“Ah,” says Samael, taking down a bottle from the top shelf of a cupboard. He brings it to the table and takes a corkscrew from a drawer. When he gets the cork out of the bottle and pours himself a glass, he looks at me.
“The longer my fathers are separate entities, the weaker they get. No one can know, but Nefesh’s death proves that you don’t need—-what’s the Angra name for the Qomrama?”
“Godeater.”
“Yes. You don’t need the Godeater to kill a God anymore.”
“All the blood and body parts in the lobby. Was that you?”
He takes a sip of wine and shakes his head.
“That was all Muninn. The only other time I’ve seen him like that was when he knocked me out of Heaven with a thunderbolt. He blew those traitors to bits with a wave of his hand. Good for you, Father.”
He clinks his glass against mine and I have to sip more of the Hellion swill.
“Good for which one of us and for what?” says Muninn, coming into the room. He sees the open bottle of wine and gets himself a glass. Samael fills it for him.
“Your righ-teous wrath,” says Samael.
“Oh. You mean the lobby. It was certainly wrathful, and I don’t apologize for it. But I’m not so sure about righ-teous.”
“Righ-teous enough,” says Samael. “Those pissants got exactly what they deserved.”
“Perhaps. I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“I’m sorry about your brother,” I say.
“Which one?” says Muninn. “The one who died or the one who lived? They’re each a different problem.”
“Both?”