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He nods.
“Lucifer was always the smart one. That’s why he and the kid never got along. One’s all heart and one’s all head. ”
“This all happened after Lucifer left. Why don’t you send him down here to fix it?”
“It wouldn’t help. You’re right about one thing. I didn’t build everything as well as I might have. This was going to happen sooner or later. ”
“Do the five of you know what the others hear and see?”
“Not everything. We like some privacy, too. Otherwise we’d all still be together. ”
“Do they know about us talking right now?”
“They can hear every word. ”
“Then you got the message I sent back with the angel from Eden?”
“We got it. You didn’t have to cut him up like that. ” He nods at my new metal bug arm. “But I guess you’re even. ”
I look away. The building the Kissi torched is really roaring. I can feel the heat all the way over here. I wonder if we should move, but Neshamah doesn’t seem worried, so I decide not to be.
“Maybe I was a little harsh. I’d just gotten over being dead. And he threw the first punch. ”
“I guess that makes it all right, then. ”
Neshamah walks across the parking lot and looks out over another part of Hell. The view isn’t any better from over here. I don’t say it because I can see it on his face.
He says, “He’s not Lucifer anymore, by the way. He’s Samael. ”
“So I heard. Speaking of your kids, what’s the story with Aelita? She makes Lilith look like Mother Teresa. Didn’t she get enough face time with Daddy?”
“You’re not a parent. Don’t tell me how to raise my family. ”
“I don’t know if she has Electra complex or Oedipus complex or diaper rash, but she really wants you dead. You need to get her some Prozac. ”
We walk all the way around the roof. The sky remains a solid mass of smoke. Earthquakes rumble on the horizon.
“I knew that Lucifer was a troublemaker, but I also knew he’d grown out of it. But I never saw this coming with Aelita. I’ve tried talking to her, but she might be a lost cause. ”
“You could always kill me. That’s what she really wants. ”
“Don’t think I haven’t considered it. And that’s not what she wants. You’re just a symptom of what she sees as a larger condition. ”
“Sounds like she’s gone Gnostic on you and thinks Daddy’s the demiurge, too. ”
He turns and looks me in the eye.
“Who the hell are you to talk about misbehaving kids? Your whole life has been about breaking things. You’re not a dumb kid. Why do you go looking for trouble?”
“ ’Cause one of your angels ruined my mother and father’s lives and made me an Abomination. When I finally found my real father, he told me that all I was and ever will be is a killer. Not exactly Leave It to Beaver, is it?”
“We’ve all got our troubles. Look at this mess. ”
Neshamah leans his elbows on the low wall. I do the same.
“Some of those old Greeks thought that the world couldn’t be such a cruel mess without it being on purpose. They said that who or whatever made it deep down inside had to be evil. ”
“What do you think?” he asks.
I feel in my pocket for a cigarette my brain knows isn’t there, but my body has to check for it anyway. I flex my new hand and run it over the concrete, feeling the rough surface.
I say, “I’m not a hundred percent either way. But off the top of my head, I don’t really think you’re evil. Just out of your depth. Or like a kid who gets a note on his report card. ‘If Chet applied himself, I’m sure he could do better in class. ’ ”
“Funny, that’s how we feel about you. ”
“I’m a nephilim and a killer. Do you think I’m evil?”
“I’m not a hundred percent either way. Besides, there are worse things to be than a killer. ”
“What about ‘Thou shall not kill’?”
“What about the Egyptian army Moses drowned when he closed the Red Sea on them? Do you think he could have turned them around with a few kind words? Do you think I could do that here?” He points to the city below. “Do you want to know the difference between a killer and a murderer?”
“Sure. ”
“It’s where you aim the gun. ”
That sounds more like the Old Testament guy I was looking for.
“Well, chatting has been a little slice of heaven,” I say, “but I have to figure out how to get up that hill so I can do a couple of miracles and save the universe. You wouldn’t be in the mood to help or anything?”
He looks into the distance and smiles.
“I think you have it in hand. ”
“Was that a fucking joke?”
“Sorry. I couldn’t resist. ”
I take a couple of steps to go when I hear him clear his throat.
“I think you have something of mine. ”
“Oh, right. ”
I walk over and give him the crystal.
“Muninn says that’s your insurance policy. If everything ends, you can start over again. ”
“Is that what he told you? The truth is no one knows what it will be, but something is better than nothing. ”
“You and Muninn, it’s like Jesus and Lucifer, isn’t it? One’s all heart and one’s all head. ”
He puts the crystal in a pocket of his red waistcoat. It’s a tight fit.
“He’s the youngest. I’m the oldest. You do the math. ”
“What happens if Aelita kills one of you?”
He leans over the wall and looks down at the street.
“See that manhole down there? I have a feeling if you went down inside and walked exactly three hundred and thirty-three paces west, you’ll find where you want to go. ”
“Seriously? Why that number?”
“Because that’s how many it is. Not three hundred and thirty-two or three hundred and thirty-four. Count off three hundred and thirty-three and look around. You’ll be there. ”
“Seriously? Thanks, man. And after all the things I’ve said about you over the years. ”
“Don’t worry. I’ve said the same about you. ”
“Will you be here when I’m done up the hill?”
He shrugs.
“Hard to say. I work in mysterious ways. ”
I start for the ramp wondering if I’ll need something to pry up the manhole cover.
“Nice meeting you, Spider-Man!”
I look back. Neshamah is waving, a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. I have no choice. I start an old tune my mother used to belt out when she had just the right number of martinis.
At the Devil’s ball
In the Devil’s hall
I saw the funniest devil that I ever saw
Dancing with the Devil
Oh, you little devil
Dancing at the Devil’s ball
He turns back to the city.
“Yeah, fuck you, too, kid. ”
THERE’S A KID’S game that goes something like this: “Don’t think of a white bear for half an hour and you win a dollar. ” No one ever wins because the moment anyone says “white bear,” that’s all you can think about. Being told your life depends on walking exactly 333 steps is a lot like that. You count on your fingers, but what if you get distracted and drop a number? What if you repeat one? How do you know each step you’re taking is the same distance as all the others? I should have a calculator, a tape measure, and Rain Man as a guide. If I count wrong and don’t find a way out, maybe I should keep on walking. No. I could end up in here forever, and if it’s only one Apocalypse per customer I don’t want to miss it.
330. 331. 332. 333.
I stop and look around. Light comes through a crack in the wall to my left. I dig a finger into the crack. It feels l
ike a service door that’s been welded shut but it was a sloppy job and the dampness in the tunnels has been working on the joins ever since. I push my new hand into the crack, gouging out layers of corroded iron and faded paint. The new hand works pretty well. It feels the shape and roughness of the metal, be tthe metut it doesn’t bleed or register pain. I might just have to keep it.
When there’s a clean clear crack an inch wide in the door, I brace my feet and put my shoulder and body into it. The metal slides away, scattering sewer fungus and oak-leaf-size sheets of rust.
Ragged lunatics are asleep on the floor and dirty mattresses dragged down from the wards upstairs. They don’t look so different from the ones I saw on the street. Maybe these are a little farther down the road to Candy Land. The others managed to run away, but these bedlam sheep never left the pasture. They drool and stare at me as I step through the old service door.
I’m in the lobby of what back home is the Griffith Park Observatory. This version doesn’t look like Galileo would stop by for a piss. The floors and walls are bare cement. A large open ward and single cells in a circle are around the bottom floor. All the cell doors are unlocked or have been smashed open.
The loons over here watch a couple of old souls, maybe witches, spin a dust of tiny emerald pyramids into orbit around crystal glass cubes like imaginary constellations.
The second floor is for more impressive head cases. Jack said there were Hellions in the asylum and for once he wasn’t lying. There are several, mixed in with the human souls. They’re playing games that only they can possibly understand, tossing potion bottles and human or animal bones, then drawing symbols on the floor in blood and shit. When the drawing is done everyone takes a step and contorts into a strange new position. Dungeons & Dragons for actual monsters in an actual dungeon.
The third floor is the old-fashioned black-and-white Boris Karloff Bedlam I’ve been looking for. Dim, wet, and stinking. This is where they keep the one-percenters. All the cells on the lower two floors are open, but these have double-thick bars surrounded by bonding hexes. And they’re working because most of the cells are still occupied.
The good news is that the few third-floor patients who’ve escaped their cells look more dangerous to themselves than to me. Two grimy Hellions roll around on the floor, each gnawing on the other’s straitjacket. I can’t tell if they’re trying to help or eat each other. Going by the holes in the material and their broken teeth, it looks like they’ve been going at it for quite a while without getting anywhere. Still, you have to give them points for hanging in there.
A Hellion as big as Crab Man emerges suddenly from the dark and lumbers past without looking in my direction. He must have been shackled to the wall of his cell. He has metal cuffs and chains attached to his wrists and is hauling two huge carved stones behind him. Going by the deep scratches on the floor, it looks like all he’s done since getting out is drag his heavy chains and rocks around and around the third floor. As he passes each locked cell, damned souls and Hellions pound the doors and howl at him.
There’s a short hall off the main corridor. The worst of the worst will be down there. I go through the hall quietly and peer around the corner. Just two guards at the end. That’s where Alice will be. My breath cien My breatches in my throat. This is the closest I’ve been to her in over eleven years and there’s only a couple of bored doormen in the way.
For the first time I’ve been down here, I’m scared. Normally I’d get out the na’at and go completely brontosaurus on two lousy guards. But if I do anything spectacularly stupid, there might be another guard in the cell who could kill Alice. The angel reminds me that I’m also wearing a brand-new arm that I’ve never used in a fight. For once I need to think this through.
A couple of minutes later the rock-dragging Hellion makes the turn to this end of the corridor. The guards by Alice’s cell don’t even look up. They’ve heard him walk by a hundred times. The guards couldn’t look more bored.
I flatten myself against the wall. As the backwater Sisyphus passes, I get out the black blade and slice through his heavy chains while giving him a little kick in the ass. Not enough to hurt him. Just enough to push him into the side hall so that the guards will be the first thing he sees when he realizes he’s free.
At first he stands there, probably feeling off balance with the big load off his back. Then he looks at his empty hands. Sees the dark and gangrenous flesh around the shackles where they’ve been biting into his wrists for who knows how long. The guards aren’t pleased. They want him to keep dragging the stone exactly the way he always has. They don’t want him to improve himself. The boy with the wrist shackles must be picking up on the guards’ negative waves because he heads right at them for a heart-to-heart. I can’t be sure exactly what they’re saying, but I hear a lot of “ows” and “don’ts” along with the kind of crunching I’ve come to associate with smashed bones. The angel reminds me to be patient and wait for the conversation to die down by itself.
In a couple of minutes a still-disoriented giant wanders out of the side hall. He’s covered in blood and other colorful fluids that I don’t want to think about. He stares at his stones, lost and desperate without them. I go over and pick up the end of one of the chains. He looks up when he hears the links rattle against each other. I hold the chain out to him. He eyes me for a full minute. I’m not sure what he sees. I wonder if the insane can see through glamours? I still have Hellion skin plastered on my face, so I’d be pretty confusing to look at if he can see my living body.
Slowly, he puts out a hand. I wrap the chain around his palms and close his fingers over the metal. He leans forward. The weight is different, but familiar enough that he knows what to do. The moment he puts his head down, he forgets about me. He leans into the weight and pulls. The stones scrape reassuringly along the floor behind him.