Текст книги "Aloha from Hell"

Автор книги: Richard Kadrey

Соавторы: Richard Kadrey,Richard Kadrey,Richard Kadrey
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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

I push everything off Mason’s desk with my robo-bug arm and lay out my skin. I chant, letting the rhythm and the hougans’ words drift back into my head. I rub my temples until the flesh goes soft. When it feels loose I pinch the edges and pull. Mammon’s face peels away like the bandage off a wound. I concentrate, keeping the rhythm going while I press my face into place. The skin burns slightly as it settles and reattaches itself. I stop the chant and take my hand away, go to Mason’s worktable, and paw through the junk for anything reflective. I find a polished metal toolbox and hold it up.

I recognize this guy. He smokes all my cigarettes and gets me in trouble. And when I find Alice this face won’t scare her as much as the other. Of course, she hasn’t seen all my scars. She might not think this is an improvement.

If the bag is here, it means Jack must have made it back. But if Mason tossed it, that means he wasn’t much interested in Jack’s swag. I’m a little hurt. I thought he’d at least have my face stuffed and mounted like those mariachi frogs you get in Tijuana.

“Is that you, Stark? Or are you another bad dream?”

The gurgling voice drifts in from an open window. Something is moving out there, casting a wavering shadow on the floor. I get out the na’at and push aside the curtains.

There’s a heavy chain and something wet and red dangles from it, swaying gently with the breeze. It’s too small to be a side of beef and too big for pork.

The meat smiles at me.

“Are you real?” it asks.

“Hello, Jack. You’re not looking so good.”

“I’m not, am I?”

He gurgles the words. There’s a lot of blood in his throat, just one of the many downsides to being skinned alive (or as alive as Jack can be). He giggles high and crazy as the breeze moves him in gentle circles. Suddenly being tossed into the Tartarus furnace doesn’t seem so bad. At least it’s quick.

“As you can see, I received somewhat less of a reward than I’d hoped for,” Jack says. He grimaces, grinding his teeth as the pain cuts through whatever mad place his mind has gone to.

“What happened?”

Jack kicks his fleshless legs in frustration.

“He didn’t even want it. He was disgusted by it and by me for bringing it. He said he already knew where you were.”

“Did he say how?”

Jack giggles again.

“It wasn’t much of a conversation. My contribution consisted mainly of screams.”

This time the laughing doesn’t stop. It goes on until it’s kind of a mantra. It stops when he coughs up a bucket of blood.

Why do I feel sorry for this murdering thieving psychopath? He’s getting exactly what he did to all those women.

“I’ve got to go, Jack.”

“Toodle-oo,” he says. “Toodle-oo. Toodle-oo. Toodle-oo . . .” He sings it like a kid’s song.

The angel in my head ew in my prods me.

When the wind blows Jack around so his back is facing me, I jam the black blade between his ribs and into his heart. He stops singing. Twitches for a few seconds. Then slows. Then stops. Then vanishes.

Even a bastard like him doesn’t deserve what Mason did. Soon he’ll wake up in the ruins of Tartarus and climb out like the rest of the double dead. He’ll wander there forever, a ghost among the ordinary souls. I don’t know if that’s justice, but sometimes you take what you can get.

I say, “Olly olly oxen free, Josef. It’s showtime.”

A second later the Kissi’s standing by the desk.

“I hope this isn’t another excuse or delay,” he says.

“Delay? You’re already late for the ball. Get the kids in their Sunday best and bring them out front. It’s time to go.”

He struggles not to let his smile get too broad and loses.

“It’s about time. When we destroy Heaven’s armies and the Hellion legions are gone, I think I’ll take this palace for myself. I like the desk and have always admired that little furnace. What happened to the hanging man outside? I was thinking of getting several of them and using them as wind chimes.”

“Bring your troops out front with the legions. Feel free to make a gaudy entrance.”

Josef disappears. I pronounce a few words and the glamour that’s hidden my being alive fades away. There’s no point to that anymore. I go to the nearest shadow and disappear, too.

I COME BACK out on the reviewing balcony. The officers are in a ring around the floating map as Semyazah explains the plan. I shoulder my way into the ring before anyone can react.

Knives come out, but no one throws any angel hoodoo. I’m next to Semyazah and they don’t want me quite enough to risk making him collateral damage. Baphomet, the oldest, isn’t intimidated. He heads straight for me, a long curved blade in each hand.

“I’ve waited a long time for this.”

Rule one in wolf-pack territory is stand your ground. I manifest the Gladius and hold it up to his face. Curses and gasps erupt around the room.

Semyazah pushes me back and gets in front.

“Enough!” he barks at Baphomet. The old general stops, confused. I guess even he can’t do the sword trick. If any of the others can, Semyazah has intimidated them enough to back down.

– t000000"01C;Sandman Slim fights with us against Mason Faim.”

Baphomet says, “Why should we trust this monster now?”

I say, “I’m not here for your piano recital. I’m here because the enemy of my enemy isn’t exactly my friend. But he isn’t my enemy until this shit is over.”

“You haven’t been here for months. How could you know what’s happening in Hell?” asks Baphomet.

“Didn’t Lucifer mention it to you? He gave me his password to The Daimonion Codex. If you squint hard enough, you can see past the words and into every nook and cranny in Hell. I watched every one of you assholes betray each other, trying to get just an inch closer to Mason.” I look at Baphomet. His eyes are red with fury. “Mammon, who poisoned your troops before the attack exercise in Dis. He’s dead now, by the way. You’re welcome.” I look around at the circle. “Do you want a laundry list of which one of you shafted the other and how? How about it, Shax? Belial?”

Semyazah says, “Lower your weapons, both of you. Sandman Slim fights with us, and whatever happened in the past can be dealt with after the battle.”

Baphomet sheathes his knives like a kid who has to put back the cookies he stole before dinner.

Shax says, “I still don’t trust him. You said he’s involved with the Kissi. They don’t have a stake in this fight. Why would they come?”

I look up at the sky.

“Why don’t you ask them yourself?”

Shax and the others follow my gaze.

Something bursts through the burning clouds. It comes in a long solid line that snakes from the clouds. It spreads out, staining the air black. Then the dark breaks apart into a thousand pieces and settles to the ground like a plague of giant locusts. One bug heads straight for us and lands on the edge of the balcony. Josef steps down and bows. Not Aryan supermodel Josef. Kissi Josef.

He looks like an unfinished insect angel. His features are half melted, like sculpted wax. Josef glows faintly with a blue-white light that makes him look like a bottom-of-the-ocean predator. He’s so awful he’s almost beautiful.

He walks to the circle of officers. Stops and waits when he reaches the line. A hole opens up and Josef steps through. When he reaches Semyazah he gives a bow small enough to be a head bob.

“I’m honored to meet Tartarus’s destroyer, General Semyazah.”

Josef offers his hand to shake. Semyazah reaches for it. It’s a pure act of will. It will be inexcusably rude if he doesn’t arninȁnd Josef will read it as fear, not disgust. The general barely gets through it.

“Did you get the battle plans to the right people?” I ask Semyazah.

He nods, trying to make the comment look casual.

“As best as we can spread the new strategy to so many in so little time. We’ll know soon enough if it’s worked.”

“A new plan?” asks Josef. “Why have you changed your attack so close to battle?”

He’s suspicious. I don’t have to be able to touch his mind to see that.

Semyazah says, “Because Mason Faim is no longer a part of this battle. You are. That changes how we deploy our troops.”

“And how is that, General?”

“Heaven knows we’re coming, but they don’t know about you. As the Kissi’s leader, you will ride point with Sandman Slim and myself. Your troops will travel in tight formation behind a legion of our infantry. This will hide the Kissi until the last minute. Before we reach Heaven’s gates, our legions will part to reveal you. The shock will allow us to flank Heaven’s battlements and crush its armies between us. Is that clear?”

“As the pristine vacuum of space.”

Semyazah turns to his men.

“And to the rest of you?”

Heads nod. There are noises of agreement.

Semyazah goes to the edge of the balcony. The legions are spread out below him in every direction.

He shouts, “Release the hellhounds!”

There’s a whir like prop planes and clanking like all the garbage cans in L.A. are being pounded on the ground at once. A mechanical hound the size of an elephant walks across the hotel lawn. Soldiers move back and leave a lane for the hounds to pass. Behind the elephant hound, the regular hellhounds come pouring from their pens in the underground garage. They paw the ground and snarl. Brains slosh in spinal fluid within the glass globes that are their heads. That’s how you motivate your troops. Get them anxious to start the war just so they can get away from the dogs.

Out in the street, Unimogs and flatbeds arrive. In regular Hell it would be the big hounds pulling carts loaded with trebuchets, siege towers, and Hellion versions of Roman ballistae. Here it’s trucks pulling cannons, rocket launchers, and mortars. The vehicles have huge animal horns on the front and metal barbs around the body and over the top. I wouldn’t want to have to attack one.

“Itȁght01C;It&9;s time to go, gentlemen,” Semyazah says. “Our fall from Heaven took nine days, but our rise will take mere hours.”

He looks at Josef.

“I’ll meet you downstairs with your army.”

Josef nods, spreads his wings, and launches himself from the balcony.

Semyazah pulls me aside.

“Are you sure your people are going to go along with this?” I ask.

Semyazah watches Josef go.

“We’ll know soon. If not, we’ll both be dead. Even if we win, we could be killed, so what does it matter?”

“You didn’t get the pep-talk badge in Hellion Boy Scouts, did you?”

IN FRONT OF the hotel trainers gather the smaller hellhounds into packs by the giant hounds. Weapons specialists with faces like children’s nightmares do last-minute adjustments on their equipment. A lot of them recognize me. Their eyes go a little wide when they see my new arm and all the dried blood on my coat. I was expecting more hostility, but they know I’m here with Semyazah, so maybe having Sandman Slim on his side gets him extra brownie points. I’ll be his beard if it gets the job done.

Semyazah says, “My men are bringing up your transport. Which would you prefer, a male or female hellhound? The males are stronger, but the females are faster.”

“Fuck you. I didn’t sign up to be Tarzan. Get me a truck or a Harley or anything else, but I’m not riding one of those things.”

One of his officers drives up in a red Ferrari Testarossa. He gets out and hands the keys to the general.

“This is Mason Faim’s vehicle. I thought you might be more comfortable in it,” says Semyazah.

I walk around the car, running my hand over the nearly frictionless surface.

“Damn, General. I think you almost made a joke a second ago.”

Semyazah tosses me the keys.

“If both you and the car survive the battle, I suggest you use it to get away from Pandemonium. When the fighting is over, Sandman Slim will be the next target for a lot of my men.”

I rub my shoulder where the new arm is attached.

“Let’s hope there’s enough of us left to worry about that.”

Semyazah walks around the car. His lips are drawn and thin. He hates the mortal stink on it.

“You’ll be able to keep up in that. You, Josef, and I will be in separate trucks at the front. Can you handle a vehicle like this?”

“Just keep the trucks and hellhounds off my back. I’m not looking to pull a Jayne Mansfield down here,” I say. “One question. This isn’t a convertible. If I’m tucked up in here, how is anyone going to know it’s me?”

“Mason Faim might have driven this, but he wouldn’t have taken it into battle. You’re the only one stupid enough to do that.”

“Cool. That’s even better than vanity plates.”

As Semyazah goes he calls over his shoulder.

“Meet me where the Kissi are massing on the other side of the palace.”

It feels a little weird using keys to start a car. I turn them in the ignition and the engine roars like a stealth fighter. I give it some gas and pop the clutch. Hellions scatter as I blast across the lawn straight at Josef and his big boys.

The Kissi formation wavers and falls apart as I drive right at them. Josef doesn’t move.

At the last minute I downshift, crank the wheel, and grab the hand brake, spinning the car in a one-eighty and stopping in front of him.

“Very funny,” says Josef. “You always were the king of comedy.”

“And I don’t work blue. You’ll play the big rooms if you work blue.”

Semyazah, in full battle armor, rides shotgun in a Unimog. The armor is dented where it was hit with bullets and crossbow bolts and slashed with heavenly swords. Another truck pulls up next to it for Josef. He doesn’t try to hide his disgust when he sees it. Kissi fly into battle. He must feel like an invalid having to ride. I just hope he doesn’t do anything clever and fuck things up. I gun the Ferrari and wait for the order to move.

Climbing on top of the Unimog, Semyazah gives the signal to fire up the vehicles. The growl of a thousand engines and gears shifting is something you feel as much as you hear. Your rib cage shakes and your heart bounces around in your chest. I could do this every night.

Fireworks burst overhead. Skyrockets burst in spiderwebs of green, gold, and red across the sky, lighting the bottom of the roiling clouds. That’s our cue. I pop the clutch and we roll forward.

Good night, moon. Good night, world. Whichever way this turns out, nothing is ever the same again.

You’l b>Youll never know how stupid I feel, Candy, fucking off to war in this four-hundred-horsepower road rocket when I should have stolen one back home and taken you to Mexico or Vegas or even the real Venice Beach. I wish we’d had more time and gotten a chance to bust up more hotel rooms. Vidocq once told me that you can’t judge your life by the moments you missed, but only by the ones you got. We didn’t get many measured against eternity, but it’s better than nothing.

I hope Lucifer is Upstairs and knows what’s coming. He’s known how my head works for a long time. Fingers crossed I know something about how his works, too.

I hope Neshamah is taking care of you, Alice. This is going to work or it’s not. It’s that simple. I’ve never strung together so many strands of bullshit before. If God won’t save us, maybe tall tales and lies will. Maybe all the crap I’ve pulled my whole life will turn out to be useful for something besides cadging drinks and pulling girls, and my still being alive will mean something. I let the world kill you once and I’m trying like hell not to let it happen again.

I wonder if Neshamah has the crystal out, ready to break it if Heaven burns and Hell cracks open and swallows itself? Be cool, old man. Wait till the credits roll. No twitchy trigger fingers tonight.

We’re heading south toward the port and the refineries. The trucks, APCs, and tanks spread out across the empty freeway, ripping the roadbed to pieces. It trembles and cracks, kicking up a hailstorm of concrete and rebar and tossing it back at the trucks in the rear. I keep up the Testarossa’s speed. I don’t want to end up in that rolling shit storm. The hill fires have rolled down through the city and flames rise up around us on both sides of the road.

A couple of miles ahead, the top deck of the freeway has collapsed and one end is lying on the street below. Semyazah and Josef either don’t care or don’t notice. I do. I’m goddamn concerned that my kidneys don’t end up as hood ornaments. If I stop, the trucks riding my bumper will crush me. There’s no shoulder to pull off on and no detours. Fuck it. I jam the accelerator to the floor. Let’s see how far this little red wagon can fly.

The collapsed slab shudders and pieces of roadbed follow the Testarossa over the edge. It’s not a fall. It’s more like shooting down from the top of a roller coaster. The car plummets and gradually levels out on a pristine lower freeway level a hundred lanes wide. The road is stained with thick patches of solvents and petrochemicals, but in this twisted light they shine like jewels and fallen stars. The Glory Road to Heaven.

It’s not long before we see a glow ahead, like the sun has set the other side of the world on fire. But there’s no sun here, just smoke and the glow, and I know the moment I see it that the light ahead is Heaven. I look around for Semyazah and Josef. We have to stay together for this.

Finally I can see Heaven itself.

It spreads out straight across the whole horizon, a monster parody of L.A.’s southern refineries. God’s little acre in the gleaminck the glg industrial skeleton of a prehistoric beast. Mountainous burn-off towers, catalytic crackers, and soaring distillation units are steel spines along the beast’s back. Heaven’s steel-pipe bones glow gold, illuminated by a thousand sodium-vapor lights. And on every catwalk, crow’s nest, and gantry, armed angels are waiting for war.

I hold my breath and wait for something to go wrong. Slowly let the air out of my lungs. Don’t think too much. Don’t jinx it. Just drive. I tick off the seconds, imagining Heaven’s golden pipes exploding and the place burning. It turns to rivers of molten metal that flow down the Glory Road to flood Hell and then the rest of Creation.

We’re right at the refinery’s gates. I can’t believe how high they are and how close we are to them.

War whoops blare from loudspeakers mounted on the trucks. Fireworks explode overhead. The signal.

Semyazah and I peel off from the point of the attack. It’s like when I spooked the Kissi at the hotel. I crank the Testarossa’s wheel hard, hit the brakes, and use the hand brake to send the car into a hundred-and-eighty-degree spin. Then I floor it, following Semyazah back the way we came, staying close to the edge, inches from the guardrail. The Kissi army blasts straight at Heaven’s gates as the Infernal legions close in behind them.

There’s a noise like a nuke going off. Heaven has opened fire. With the halo polishers in front and the Infernal legions at their backs, the Kissi are the bologna in a death-row sandwich. Adios, Josef. Send me a postcard from the Big Nowhere.

Something slams into my rear bumper, knocking me into the guardrail. I scrape along it for half a mile, peeling metal off half the side of the Testarossa. I’m swallowed in blackness as something huge jumps over the car, heads down the freeway, and turns to face me. It’s one of the giant hellhounds. It bellows and lowers its head until I can see Mason on its back wearing Lucifer’s golden armor. Momentum carries me toward him, and the hellhound raises one of its front feet to stomping position. I hit the accelerator. The hound is strong but it’s not as fast as a Ferrari.

When I’m about to go under the stomping foot, I spin the wheel right, slamming into the other leg. The hound wobbles. When I pull away, the car is making nasty sounds and shudders every time I pick up speed. I think I just broke the frame. I should have bought the rental insurance.

I’m almost clear of the hound when one of its legs kicks the rear end. The car almost stands on its nose and flips. Now it’s making a brand-new bad sound. The rear axle might be cracked. Nothing to do now but see how long this heap holds together.

Every time I try to get up speed, the car shudders like it’s going to fall apart. I can’t get it over sixty. A grinding and thumping comes up through my feet. The rear axle is definitely cracked. No way I can outrun the hound.

It charges me again. When it gets close enough to flatten me, I hit the brake and slide underneath it.

The hound gets one of its paws under the hood and rips the top off. I stick my Kissi arm out the window and slash at the hound’s leg as I go by. Something splashes over the windshield. Hydraulic fluid.

I keep running. Mason’s hound is still in my rearview mirror, but it’s slowing down. The hydraulic line to one of the hound’s front legs spews fluid all over the freeway. It can’t get enough pressure to bend the leg. The hound sways from side to side, looking like it’s about to fall.

As a group of Semyazah’s Heaven-bound hellhounds passes us, Mason throws a hoodoo power bolt, knocking the rider off a medium-size hound. He jumps onto it as his dog stumbles off the edge of the freeway and crashes in a burning ditch. Mason turns the hound around and heads down the freeway back toward L.A.

He pushes the dog hard. I try to catch up, but he’s way ahead of me and soon disappears. I keep the Testarossa pegged at sixty. Metal grinds against metal. Please hold together just a little bit longer, just until we get off this road and I can find somewhere with deep fat shadows.

As the Testarossa closes on the collapsed freeway section, I get a bad feeling. It won’t make it up to the top. The rear end screams and drops. The car is still moving, but suddenly I’m dragging an Italian precision-engineered plow, kicking up sparks and digging a deep furrow as I go. Up ahead is a minefield of broken pavement the trucks kicked up. I can’t steer clear in time. The car’s cracked frame bottoms out and the shudder nearly shatters my teeth. I hit the brake and let the car roll to a stop.

I have to kick the door open to get out. Fires burn along the freeway. I’m back by the furnace in Tartarus again, except this time there’s enough light to make deep fat shadows. I dive in.

At least one thing has gone right today. The Kissi are being taken out of the picture. They did their job. They made me look strong enough and crazy enough to be part of the war. Now I have to move on to the hard part, but all I want is a cigarette, a drink, and a nap. I probably should have just blown the universe up with the Mithras when I first got back to earth. This caring about stuff is too much goddamn work.

I GO THROUGH the Door of Fire and come out in Mason’s office. It’s the last place he should come, but I know he’ll be here. People are funny. When they’re dangling at the end of a rope, they head back to where they feel most secure, even if it’s the dumbest thing they can do. But Mason is a bit smarter than your average thug. He has one thing none of those others have. He has Alice.

Mason is perched on the edge of his desk trying to affect exactly the kind of cool he doesn’t have or he wouldn’t be here. Alice is sitting in his desk chair. Her eyes are red like she’s been crying. There’s a black bone knife sticking point first into the top of the desk. It’s hard not to charge him. I can probably get him before he throws a hex. Who am I kidding? The angel in my head points out that I’m not exactly in prime shape and that attacking Mason is what haveon is we wants. I go for him. Mason grabs the knife. Alice dies again and I get to watch.

I’m not even sure I want to kill Mason anymore. I want to force-feed him Vidocq’s immortality potion. Then I’ll do to him what he did to Jack. He can hang from the chain on the balcony, a chunk of raw red meat turning in the wind for a million years.

“Are you okay?” I ask Alice.

She nods.

“Where’s Neshamah?”

She shakes her head.

“He’s dead. Aelita came with raiders. She killed him and took the crystal. Then she brought me here.”

Mason tosses the Singularity back and forth between his hands.

He says, “Do you know what this is?”

“No,” I lie. “But I have a feeling you don’t want to break it.”

He smiles.

“So you do know what it is.”

“I just try not to break anything angels steal from deities. Call it a fetish.”

“He says it’s a weapon,” says Alice.

Mason catches it with a flourish, like a juggler.

“When I couldn’t get the key to work, Aelita told me about the Singularity. It’s been my private project ever since.”

“If you want to blow up everything, you have what you need right there. Go ahead and do it.”

He holds up the crystal.

“With this? It will just start another universe and all the whole humans-versus-God-and-monsters game will start all over again. No. When this place goes I don’t want anything coming back.”

“Neshamah never said it could do that.”

“It can’t. I can. That’s why it was easy to duck out when Baphomet turned the generals against me.”

Mason puts the Singularity in his pocket.

“The trick is to contain the explosion. Allowing the blast to happen, but preventing it from coalescing back into a new universe.”

“How can you do that?”

He walks behind Alice.

“By setting the Singularity off within a divine object. Say a soul fresh from Heaven.”

He puts his hands on Alice’s shoulders.

“Her divine spark will increase the strength of the new Big Bang so that the new universe will blow itself apart before any of it can come together.”

“I bet I can yank out your spine before you do anything with Alice and that goose egg.”

“I don’t need long. I was hoping for just a few more minutes before you got here.”

“Where’s Aelita? Did she desert you in your hour of need?”

He rolls his eyes.

“The silly bitch went back to Heaven. You know her obsession with killing God? She got Neshamah but she wants the brother still in Heaven. Ruach.”

“She knew all about the Singularity,” says Alice. “She said Ruach told her.”

“Why would he give her something that could wipe out everything, including him?”

Mason wipes a few spots of hydraulic fluid from his cheek.

“Apparently, he thinks he’s figured out a way to survive the blast. It’s not possible, but he believes it and it got me what I wanted.”

“So, you’ve got Alice, the Singularity, and the big knife. But you haven’t done anything with any of it yet. What do you think happens now?”

“I’m going to set off my bomb and you’re going to try and stop me, which means that one of us is going to kill the other one. Or we kill each other.”

“I vote for the first one.”

“Me, too.”

Mason puts his hands together like he’s praying. Something in the ceiling explodes, covering me with white powder. Does he want us to make biscuits together or fill me full of anthrax? The room turns to water and I fall through.

I wake up in our bed in the old apartment. I hear Alice showering in the bathroom. My head is a little fuzzy. I drank too much again last night. I’ll cool it tonight. We’ll stay in and watch the Argento marathon and order pizza.

Alice comes out of the bathroom toweling herself off. She’s naked. She comes over to the bed and hands me the to

“Do my back, will you? And my hair?”

She asks like it’s a burden to run the towel and my hands over her. I bend her forward and pull her against me, carefully toweling her from the small of her back to the nape of her neck. I start rubbing the towel through her hair and she leans back into it like a puppy being scratched.

“Kasabian called,” she says. “Your little magic Circle is supposed to meet at Mason’s place at ten.”

I say, “They’re going to have a long wait. I’m not going back. I’m quitting.”

She turns around and hugs me to her naked skin.

“Really?” she asks. “I was hoping you’d say that. I don’t like those people. Mason gives me the creeps.”

“Me, too. I’m going to call some Sub Rosas I know and see if they can help me find a legit job. Nothing behind a desk, but not like the apocalyptic power stuff we’ve been playing with in the Circle. It’s giving me bad dreams.”

“That and the beer.”

“You’re right. We should buy better beer.”

“You always know how to fix everything.”

Alice pushes me down and climbs on top. She leans down to kiss me and her wet hair brushes my face. When she sits up again, her face isn’t right. She morphs into a small brunette and we’re not in the apartment, we’re at the Beat Hotel in a room filled with broken furniture. Her face changes into a distorted combination of Candy and Alice. There’s pressure in my head, like hands are pulling me apart from inside. I try to make sense of the woman’s contorting face but I can’t.

My vision explodes into different spectrums of light. I fall a long way, no longer seeing light, but separate photons working their way through the air.

My eyes snap open. I’m lying flat on my ass. The angel took control and pulled me out of Mason’s hallucination. For the first time in a long time, I’m glad the angel is there.

I say, “Damn. Can I get a six-pack of that stuff before I go? That was more fun than trucker speed.”

The prayer hands caught me off guard the first time, so when Mason curves his fingers into a new configuration, I throw up a defensive shield.

His hex flies past me and hits the office’s big double doors. They turn bone white and fall apart, the dry wood turning to dust before it hits the floor.

That prick almomant prickst hit me with a ball of time. I’ve never tried that. I’m going to have to steal the idea.

I hit Mason with a quick series of hexes, alternating ice and fire, freezing and heating his skin so it splits open like the fault lines in the street. Follow it up with shots of pure pain to make his nerve endings sing. I finish by tossing a dozen pit vipers Mason’s way. Their venom dissolves skin, turning blisters into what look like third-degree burns. They swarm Mason. I hear Alice gasp.

Mason isn’t moving. The vipers haven’t hit him that many times, but he seems out of it. I can’t hear a heartbeat or his breathing. It could be anaphylactic shock.

Standing over him, I should at least be able to read that he’d had life in him once. When I touch his body, it falls to the floor like candy glass. Touching the phantasm broke the illusion. I spin around, looking for the real Mason.

Something crunches through my left shoulder. The pain turns off my brain. When I’m thinking again, I realize I’ve been stabbed three more times. I mumble a healing spell, but Mason is ahead of me, delivering a counterspell before I’ve finished mine. I’m suddenly exhausted. The angel reaches down and reads my body. There’s something funny in my blood all of a sudden, but it’s a Hellion brew he doesn’t recognize. I fall to my knees and Mason pushes me down onto my back.