The trunk lid flipped open and he leaned inside, finding what he was looking for and carefully hauled it out.
Francis brought the ornate metal canister around so that the Broker could see, gently setting it down upon the ground between his feet.
The Broker strained to rise up in a sitting position, wincing in pain as a result of his two broken arms.
“And what is this, angel?” the Broker asked. “Perhaps some form of payment to buy away the contract on your friend’s life?”
“It’s death,” Francis said matter-of-factly.
The Broker looked at him, and Francis was sure that the demon really didn’t quite understand how far this whole business had gone and how far it was still to go.
“Inside this canister is the distillation of God’s wrath.”
“He is not my God,” the demon spat defiantly.
“No matter whose God He is, this canister holds but a sample of the anger that He heaped upon the Pharaoh of Egypt for not releasing the Israelites from slavery.”
Francis lovingly stroked the ornate, copper-colored canister.
“Maybe you saw the movie? One of Chuck Heston’s finest.” The angel paused, ruminating. “That and
The Omega Man
—and the one with the monkeys, of course.”
“What are you babbling about?” the demon asked. “You tell me you have a container that contains the power of your God, and I ask you, so what? It changes nothing in the scheme of things.”
“But it does,” Francis said.
“What does it change, angel? The Bone Masters will continue to be the deadliest of assassins, and your friend is going to die.” The demon smiled nastily. “You see? Canister or not, nothing changes.”
Leona’s engine purred strangely, almost sounding like a chuckle—at least, that’s what it sounded like to Francis.
“With this, everything changes,” Francis said, lifting the canister of God’s wrath up from the ground about an inch and then setting it back down.
“This is your end,” Francis said icily, waiting a moment for what he was saying to sink in. “I never wanted it to get this bad, but no matter how I tried to figure it, you were right. No matter how many assassins were taken off the game board, as long as Remy was still alive there would be Bone Masters coming for him.”
“Maybe even the simple-minded eventually come to understand the futility of fighting back against the Bone—”
“So I decided to change everything,” Francis said, interrupting the demon. “To clear the game board completely.”
The Broker still wasn’t quite getting it, but he was onto the fact that something serious was about to go down.
“Sure, I understood that there was probably nothing that I could do about the assassins already on the job, especially if you had zero intention of calling them in—I got that.”
Francis looked away from the demon, at his dwelling, and at the barracks behind it. He then looked in other directions at the dwellings there as well.
“But then I started to think of the Bone Masters and what absolute pains in the ass they’ve been to me since this whole business happened. Nothing but a perpetual thorn in my side, and a continued thorn in the side of my friend Remy if he should survive the current contract.”
“Go on, angel. I’m starting to lose interest.”
Francis smiled again, that cold, awful grin.
“So I decided to do something drastic. I decided that I would remove that thorn from my ass and from the asses of anybody else out there that might some day have a run-in with you Bone Master douches.”
Francis slowly squatted down, taking the top of the canister in hand and beginning to twist.
“What are you doing?” the Broker asked. Was that a hint of panic he was now hearing in the demon’s voice?
Should have been.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Francis answered. There was a resounding crack as the seal was broken, and the lid slowly began to unscrew.
The Broker started to push away, as the bluish gray–colored mist began to escape from beneath the lid, seemingly heavier than air, slithering down from the canister to the ground.
“I’m going to kill you all,” Francis then explained, continuing to twist the lid. “I’m going to kill everything in this world—the young and the old; all future Bone Masters in training will never get to ply their trade, I’m sorry to say.”
“You’re mad!” the demon exclaimed.
“I’m mad, all right,” Francis said, removing the lid and tossing it aside, where it clattered to the street. “I’m pissed the fuck off at the fact that I have to do something so drastic, but you left me little choice.”
He stood up, leaving the canister where it he had placed it. The contents continued to crawl out from inside, where they had been kept—
imprisoned
—since they were last used against Pharaoh.
“Never thought I’d ever actually be that desperate to open it,” Francis said, shaking his head as he watched God’s wrath continue to emerge. “But desperate times and all that shit.”
The Broker had managed to push himself up against the wall with his legs and was fighting to stand. “You can’t do this!”
“But I am,” Francis said. The Wrath of God had fully emerged now, filling the air and spreading off in various directions. “In the old days it took the form of plagues: water into blood, locusts, death of the firstborn, boils, frogs . . . Honey Boo Boo.”
The angel laughed then. “That last one was a joke, but you never can tell.”
The air was suddenly filled with the screams of an awakening populace.
The Broker looked terrified, pressed against the wall of his abode.
“It works fast,” Francis said, the cries spreading and growing louder by the second. “I doubt it’ll take long.” He looked at the Broker. “It’ll take you last as a favor to me.”
He then moved toward the waiting car, opening the door to get into the driver’s seat.
“Wait!” the Broker yelled.
Francis paused, one foot in the car.
“We can talk. . . . Perhaps something could be done to lift the contract on the Seraphim—please.”
Francis slowly shook his head.
“Not all the
please
s in the universe could get me to put this genie back in the bottle, and besides, I couldn’t even if I wanted to. Once it’s released, it has to do its business; it could never be controlled.”
There was the shattering of glass above them and a demon fell through the broken window to land upon the street, obviously dead before he struck the ground. It was the Harvester that had told Francis what he needed to know, his face swollen horribly, thick blood like tar leaking from his mouth, nose, and eyes.
“Huh, I was wondering where he went.”
The Broker pushed off the wall with some obvious discomfort.
“Kill me,” the demon demanded. “I will lift the contract, and then allow you to kill me—just spare my people.”
Francis stared and then shook his head sadly.
“Now, why couldn’t you have been this reasonable before you pissed me off?” he said, climbing into the vehicle and slamming the door closed.
The Broker threw himself against the car, kicking and flailing with his useless arms as the world and all living things upon it were murdered by the Wrath of God.
Francis ignored the desperate actions of the Broker, reached over to turn on the radio, and tuned the channel to an oldies station, cranking up the Beach Boys to drown out the cries of the dying.
T
hey continued to dig at the base of the tree, careful so as not to disturb the crumbling ground around its base.
“We’re getting there,” Linda said breathlessly. She wiped the back of her hand across her sweating brow as she eyed the darkness within the hole.
A darkness that seemed to call to her.
“And why exactly are we digging around the abyss?” Ashley asked, pulling a handful of earth toward her.
Marlowe had gone to the other side of the tree and was digging and sniffing, sniffing and digging.
“I’m beginning to think you want the hole big enough for us to climb into,” Ashley complained.
Linda shook her head. “No,” she said flatly. “We’re not going in.” She saw a place where the hole could be widened and went to the edge, reaching in to pull clumps of dirt away.
“That’s good,” Ashley responded. “Because I’m not sure what . . .”
“I am,” Linda interrupted, busily working at the hole. She could feel Ashley staring at her.
“You’re going into the hole?” the girl asked incredulously. “You’re going down into that abyss?”
“He’s down there, Ash,” Linda said. “I can feel him down there.”
“Down there,” Ashley repeated. “We don’t even know where ‘down there’ is . . . or what it is, for that matter.”
“Yeah, but we’re here for a reason, and I think me going down that hole is part of it.”
Linda was staring again into the blackness of what Ashley called “the abyss.” It was as good a name as any. She could feel its pull on her, something akin to that gentle tug on the hand when the water of a full sink went down the drain. Only this was a tug upon something much deeper.
This was a tug upon her soul.
“No.” Ashley seemed flustered. “I don’t think that’s a good idea; in fact, I think it’s horrible. We have to stay together.” She looked around. “Wherever ‘here’ even is. If I lose somebody to talk to . . .”
Marlowe appeared from around the tree.
“Sorry, baby, but you’re not much of a conversationalist.” Ashley apologized to the Labrador. “I don’t know what I’d do here alone.”
“You’ll help to keep him alive,” Linda stated simply.
Ashley looked as if she was going to cry, and her shoulders slumped. “And how am I supposed to do that?”
“You and him,” Linda said, pointing to Marlowe. “You and he are going to lend your strength to Remy—to this tree.” She was about to touch it but decided against it, not wanting to weaken herself before . . .
Before she began what she was intending to do.
“Are you sure?” Ashley said, her tone telling Linda that she hoped the woman wasn’t.
But Linda was sure. She could feel it. Deep down in that darkness, her Remy was there. And she had to bring him back to where he belonged.
“Yeah, I really am.”
“Shit.” Ashley turned away from her.
“You can do this, Ash,” Linda encouraged. “This is why we’re here; we’re his strength. We’re the reason why he’s still around.”
Ashley turned back, her arms folded across her chest. “Fine, I guess I have to trust you.”
Linda smiled slightly. “Even though you barely know me?”
“I know,” Ashley agreed. “You’re practically a stranger, and here I am, wherever the frig I am, waiting for you to go down a hole to find my best friend in the whole world.”
Marlowe barked.
“Exactly, Marlowe,” Ashley said. “Totally fucked up.”
“A stranger?” Linda questioned. “After this, we’ll be BFFs for life.”
“After this,” Ashley repeated. “First we have to survive whatever this is,
then
we do movie nights.”
Linda laughed, but her eyes were again drawn to the yawning blackness before her.
“So how are we going to do this?” Ashley asked.
“I’m going in,” Linda said.
“Yeah, I know you’re going in,” Ashley responded with exasperation. “But how do we get you out? How do we even know when you’re ready to get out?”
Linda hadn’t thought that far and didn’t answer right away. Then she shook her head. “I don’t know. I guess I should tie something around me.”
“Yeah, like what?” Ashley asked.
Again Linda said nothing.
“We’re in a field with a tree, nothing much else around—maybe we could rip up strips of our clothes, or—”
“Look,” Linda interrupted, pointing to something in the distance that hadn’t been there before. In fact, the entire landscape had suddenly changed dramatically.
“Are those swings?” Ashley asked. “Hey, it looks like we’re in the Common now.”
“Yeah, I think we are. Did you do that?” Linda asked.
Ashley shook her head. “Not at all.”
Then Linda noticed Marlowe staring off into the distance, his tail wagging excitedly, and she began to put two and two together. “You did this, didn’t you, boy?” she said, squatting close to the Labrador and lifting his snout to look into his eyes.
He licked her face and continued to wiggle.
“But why the Common?” Ashley asked.
Linda gazed off at the playground, at the swings gently moving on their chains in the breeze.
Swings.
On chains.
Chains.
“Chains,” Linda said.
“What?”
Linda pointed to the empty playground in the distance. “The swings are hung with chains. We wrap the chains around me.”
Ashley stared at the playground for a bit, then looked at the dog by her side. “Chains. Good job, boy.”
• • •
The bullet jacket had been fashioned from the melted-down gauntlet of Joan of Arc.
Simeon had always known the metal glove of the divinely touched warrior woman would come to use someday.
And now it had.
The iron of the multipieced gauntlet had been imbued with powerful energies, energies that continued to linger long after Joan’s execution. Energies that were capable of containing those within the infant effigy retrieved from Vietnam.
“How are we doing?” Simeon asked from across the room.
The possessed magick user Malatesta sat on a stool, hunched over a table, working on the bullet jacket. “As well as we were doing the last time you asked.”
Simeon peered around the wall of protective supernatural shielding that they’d erected. The power that they were working with was something extraordinary, and to not take precautions was to risk absolute disaster. After all, they were attempting to contain a piece of creation itself.
“Will it be enough?”
“Will what be enough?” the sorcerer asked, a hint of the demonic leaking through.
“The casing . . . Will the casing be enough to hold it?”
Simeon had wondered this since they’d first brought the fragment back. It would have been preferable to use the metal of the infant receptacle, but he still needed that to contain the power until they were ready.
And that’s where metal blessed with the divinity of Joan of Arc came in.
“I’m enhancing it with some spells of my own, but it should be sufficient,” Malatesta explained.
“And you’re sure that it will be—”
“Yes, I’m sure,” the sorcerer snapped. “And if it isn’t, we won’t have anything to worry about because our atoms will be scattered to the wind.”
“There’s no reason to get testy,” Simeon said.
“This is why you needed me, isn’t it?”
“I don’t understand.”
“For this procedure,” Malatesta said. “You needed a sorcerer with exceptional aptitude.”
“Incorrect,” Simeon countered. “I needed a sorcerer with far more than exceptional aptitude. I needed somebody with a taste for darkness who would have no problem spitting in the eye of the Creator.”
He watched Malatesta’s reaction. The former Keeper agent of the Vatican trembled briefly—violently—as if somebody had just electrocuted him. Simeon knew that the holy man had again attempted to assert control over the demon Larva that had possessed him since childhood.
But to no avail.
“Then it’s a good thing you found me,” Malatesta said, his voice sounding more demon than human.
There was a flash of supernatural power, followed by the smell of burning ozone, and Malatesta pushed back his chair, admiring the ornate bullet casing he had fabricated. “Isn’t she lovely?”
Simeon reached for it, but the sorcerer pulled it away.
“There is only one,” the former holy man taunted. “Screw it up, and there won’t be any more.”
Simeon silently extended his hand, the expression on his face brooking no argument. And without another moment’s hesitation, Malatesta gently placed the .45 casing into the palm of his master’s hand.
Simeon studied the shell, feeling the magick fused to the molecular structure of the metal. He smiled as he turned it around in his hand. “Yes, this should do nicely.” He imagined its purpose fulfilled and felt a surge of pleasure very close to ecstasy.
“We finish it,” he said curtly, crimping down the intensity of his pleasure, preferring to feel nothing until what had become his purpose was fulfilled. He handed the shell back to Malatesta.
“And now the tricky part,” the possessed man said, a twinkle of evil dancing in his eye.
“And now the tricky part,” Simeon repeated, watching as the man crossed the underground chamber and approached a table where the metal container, filled with the power of creation, waited.
Waited to be shaped into something of amazing power.
Something that would lay a God low.
• • •
Steven Mulvehill moved carefully, not wanting to make his back hurt any more than it already did.
“I’m going to be a fucking cripple if I sit here for much longer.”
He and Squire sat on the wooden steps, halfway up to the bedroom where two very brave women and a dog were attempting to save his best friend’s life.
Squire munched on some oyster crackers from a package he’d miraculously produced from his pants pocket.
“How do you even have those?” Mulvehill asked.
Squire gazed up at him midcracker. “Have what?”
“Those. The crackers.”
Squire popped one into his large mouth and began to chew. “I think I had chowder recently.”
“And you saved the crackers?”
The goblin thought for a moment. “No, I probably ate them. I love these things in chowder.”
“So we’re back to the beginning, then.”
Squire looked at him as he dug another round cracker from the cellophane bag and shrugged.
Exasperated, Mulvehill changed the subject, craning his neck to see the doorway to the bedroom. “How do you think they’re doing?”
“How the fuck do I know?” Squire answered, with a mouthful of crackers.
“I would think you would know is all.”
“And why is that?”
“I don’t know, because you’re, like . . . part of this shit?”
“Part of what shit?” Squire finished the crackers, noisily crinkling the cellophane package and sticking it in the front pocket of his shirt.
“This,” Mulvehill said, making a sweeping gesture with his hands. “All this bizarre shit.”
“This bizarre shit’s got nothing to do with me.”
“Yeah, but you’re part of it. . . . You know what I mean.”
Squire scoffed, shaking his large head. “You’re all the fucking same, whether it’s this reality or another.”
“So what, I’ve hurt your feelings now?”
“Let’s just say I’ve been made a little prickly by humanity always pointing fingers at something that doesn’t fit with their idea of the normal. If it isn’t normal, it must be the problem. If I had a dollar—”
“Or an oyster cracker,” Mulvehill interrupted.
“Fuck you,” Squire spat. “If I had a dollar for every time I’d been pointed out as being the problem, just after I’d saved humanity from some world-ending, supernatural event, I’d be living the life of fucking Riley.”
There was a beat of silence before . . .
“Who is fucking Riley anyway?” Mulvehill asked.
Squire glared, and then his grotesque features softened. “I haven’t a clue, but I bet he’d appreciate somebody like me being around to save him from the fucking end of the world.”
“I appreciate you,” Mulvehill said, shifting his position again. “But my back doesn’t appreciate these steps.”
“Then we should go down to the kitchen,” Squire said. “I’m getting hungry anyway.”
Mulvehill looked at him. “You just had crackers.”
“Yeah, I just had crackers. Crackers. They’re like eating big pieces of dust. I need something a little more substantial.”
“I wouldn’t feel right going in there,” Mulvehill said. He again looked up the stairs to the open bedroom door.
“They haven’t made a peep since they went under.”
“I know, but what if they need us?”
“They’re not gonna need us,” Squire said. “Where they are, we couldn’t get to them even if we wanted to.”
“I feel like staying here is the least I can do.”
“We all have our jobs,” Squire explained. “Their job is to go into Remy’s soulscape. Ours is watching the fort, which is exactly what we’re doing.”
“I still think I should stay here—just in case.”
Squire sighed as he stood. “Suit yourself, but I’m heading down to the kitchen to whip up something to eat before I pass out from starvation.”
“You do that,” Mulvehill said. “I was going to say that you were looking a little malnourished.”
“Yeah, keep it up. You have no idea about a goblin’s metabolism,” Squire said as he started down the steps. “You want me to bring you anything?”
“No, I’m good.”
“Suit yourself.”
His eyes still on the open doorway, Mulvehill listened to the sounds of Squire as he reached the next floor below, continued down the short hallway, walked across the living room, and . . .
Steven wasn’t quite sure what he heard from the tone of voice that wafted up from below.
“Mulvehill, you might want to get the fuck down here . . . now!”
The goblin sounded like he might be upset. More upset than there wasn’t any pasta in the cupboards, or that they were out of spicy brown mustard.
No, this sounded more trouble-filled than that.
Mulvehill made sure that he had his gun as he sprang down the stairs, the pain in his back all but forgotten.