"Folklore, mostly. Tales transcribed centuries ago from the oral tradition. Or, more accurately, fragments of tales. See, these stories were thought lost to your kind, and for good reason – the forces of heaven and hell aligned to purge them from this Earth, for fear of the damage they could cause."
"And these stories," I said, "they're about the Brethren?"
"Yes. Most of it's nonsense, of course – an oblique passing reference, a half-heard conversation written down a hundred years after the fact. But some of them are quite specific. Dates. Places. Descriptions of rites the likes of which I've never seen. And it's the latter, of course, that our Daniel seemed most interested in – they're the ones writ large across the wall."
My eyes settled on one black char inscription scrawled atop all the others, and wrapping around three quarters of the room. The script itself was crude and angular, though if that was Danny's doing, or the appearance of the language itself, I didn't know.
"What is this," I asked, "Phoenician?"
"Close," Dumas replied. "It's Ancient Aramaic. Predates Biblical Aramaic by nearly five hundred years."
"Can you read it?"
The look he gave me, you'd think I just insulted his mother. "It says: 'As the worlds drew thin, the unclean spirit was cleaved, which in turn summoned forth a Deluge that purged the Nine of sin, and cast their bonds of slavery aside.' Or, you know, something to that effect."
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
Another look, this one like I'm the kid in class who eats the paste. "What does it
sound
like it means?"
"It sounds like Danny aims to crack Varela's soul and wind up a normal boy," I replied – glib, dismissive.
Only Dumas didn't take it that way, which, truth be told, kind of freaked me out. "Yeah, that's what it sounded like to me, too. Only it don't say 'crack,' it says 'cleave.' As in fucking rend asunder."
"The hell's the difference?"
"The difference, Sam, is all the difference. That shit that went down in San Fran? That was on account of a 'crack.' A mean one, yeah – the worst I've ever seen – but the soul we cracked was only damaged, not destroyed. I think that Danny's aiming to
destroy
Varela's soul, and that's a whole other ball of wax. We're talking split-the-atom bad. Worse, in fact. 'Cause 'cleave' ain't the scariest word up on that wall."
"OK, I'll bite – what is?"
"Deluge."
"Deluge." Me, playing parrot; skeptical.
"Yep."
"Like,
the
Deluge? As in Noah and a giant fucking boat?"
"The very same," he said. "Well, more or less."
"Meaning what?"
"Meaning I don't know crap about some bearded jackass collecting zebras or whatever, but there ain't a civilization worth a damn that doesn't have a flood myth of some kind. To this day, Hindus tell the tale of Manu, who saved Mankind from the rising waters of an apocalyptic flood. Ancient Mesopotamians had Utnapishtim, a man who survived the Deluge only to be granted eternal life. You people got that Noah deal. Point is, the particulars may not agree, but when you add up everything that
does
agree, it looks to be that once upon a time there was a bigass flood."
"And you're telling me it was the Brethren and some weird-ass soul-cleaving mojo that caused it? What about the whole 'God sent the flood to purge the Earth of Man's wickedness' thing?"
"Hey, I ain't sayin' for sure that's not how it went down. Like I said, this shit's been buried deep by the good guys and the bad guys both, and the only folks who've got the juice to answer that are like a mile above my pay grade. But it seems to me if your precious God sent the flood to wash away Man's wickedness, he did a pretty fucking lousy job. And as far as the whole soul-mojo angle, it's not as crazy as it sounds. All magic worth a damn requires sacrifice – an infusion of life's essence to get the gears a-turnin'. That's why the mystics of your species always use blood to kick-start their little parlor tricks. Sometimes, sure, animal sacrifice will do, but you and I both know human blood is where it's at if you really wanna get anything done. And a feat of the kind we're talking about – breaking the bonds of eternal damnation, dropping off the radar of heaven and hell both – that'd require more juice than even a genocide's worth of blood could muster. That'd require
real
power. Power like what'd be unleashed if you destroyed a human soul."
"Why Varela, though? Why's the soul got to be unclean?"
"Could be because it's hell's bond he's trying to break. Could be it doesn't have to be at all. Probably Danny's just going by what he's read – which ain't the worst plan, since the Brethren seemed to pull it off."
"So you're saying this could
work
? Danny does his little song and dance and busts open Varela and he's free?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. Seems to me it doesn't matter – what matters is Danny
thinks
it will. Once he shatters that soul, it won't matter to the millions he'll be killing whether his hoodoo was successful."
"But it can't be that easy to destroy a soul, can it? I mean, it's not like he can just whack it with a hammer, or every time some yahoo thrill-seeker's parachute failed to open,
boom
– apocalypse."
"True enough," Dumas conceded. "Only a demonforged instrument would be capable of inflicting the kind of damage Danny's after. And I'll admit, they're hard to come by. But the boy's already gotten this far – you think we ought to leave it up to chance he falters now?"
It was a fair point. Actually, from where I was sitting, it was a seriously
unfair
point, but given that I'm damned and all, that made me more inclined to believe it. I looked for any sign Dumas was putting me on with all of this, but if he was, it didn't show. And truth be told, it jibed with what I'd seen these past few days; after all, the bug-monster'd said, "Were it not for the Great Truce, for the rules to which we three agreed, I would not abide the Nine at all. But now it seems that truce is crumbling, and with it my patience for your games. I assure you I will not abide a tenth." So it sounded to me like the Nine and the Brethren were one and the same. And that Danny was gunning to be number ten. Only Captain Crawly had it in his head
I
was the one causing problems, which didn't really bode well for me – particularly since I still didn't have the faintest idea who the hell he was, or how he fitted in to all of this. And the rotten cherry on top of this shit sundae was if I didn't stop him, not only would I wind up chillin' in oblivion, but millions of people would die horribly. How'd that old poem go? "Fear death by water."
Too fucking right, I thought.
"So the Brethren are real, and Danny's obsessed with them, and he stole Varela's soul to recreate an ancient mystical rite that, if he's successful, would bring about a second Great Flood and wipe out civilization as we know it?"
"That's about the size of it, yeah."
"Shit," I said.
"Yeah," Dumas replied. "Shit."
"So – what now?" I asked.
"What're you asking me for? You know what I know. You wanna stop the guy, you're gonna hafta figure out the rest all by yourself."
"I thought we
both
wanted to stop the guy."
"Yeah, and I just gave you all the help I can."
"Says the guy who knew about Danny's caveman ramblings from the get-go and did fuck-all to stop him going rogue."
"You gotta understand, Sammy, coming down off a skim, you tap into something. Something greater than yourself. Something greater than the soul you're skimming off of. It's like, for a little while, you're tapped into the whole of human experience or some shit. Past, present, future – who knows what the fuck you're gonna see or why? Call it chance, call it the hand of God – from where I'm sitting, they're the same damn thing. But whatever you call it, I just figured that's where Danny got all this – and hell, maybe it was. I didn't think for a second he understood a word of it. Yeah, maybe I fucked up, but if I start poking around now and then the shit goes down, it only increases the odds it all leads back to me – which is precisely what I'm trying to avoid. So sorry, champ, but you're on your own. But hey – there's a chance you'll come through and save the world. A very, very narrow chance."
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it," he said, and then he smiled. "Hey, I think you and me, we just had a breakthrough in our relationship. Hashing things out all civil-like – me not killing you, you not killing me. Feels good. Feels
right
. Feels like maybe we oughta hug it out."
He spread his arms. I shook my head.
"Suit yourself. How 'bout a word of advice instead, on account of how we're such good friends now."
Friends my ass, I thought, but what I said instead was: "I'm listening."
"If it were me tracking Danny down, I'd be trying my damndest to figure out where worlds draw thin."
"Yeah. That'd be more helpful if I had the tiniest idea what the fuck it even meant."
Dumas shrugged like
what're you gonna do
? "Hey, you know as well as anyone that the whole of Mankind's prophecies and scripture amount to nothing more than a ten-thousand-year-old game of telephone. Half the time, they don't mean shit at all, and the other half–"
But before he finished his thought, there was a muffled boom from somewhere overhead, and the very cave around us shifted, raining dust upon us both and forcing me to steady myself with one hand against the wall. The movement was unthinking, reflexive, and of course it was my bum arm I reached out with; when my palm connected with the chamber wall, a jolt of queasy, white-hot pain shot up my arm, settling in my shoulder and throbbing like an impacted molar.
Another boom, right on the heels of the first. This one loosed more than dust – the darkness above rattled as small rocks bounced off the walls on the way down, and then a not-so-small rock whizzed past my head in the darkness, parting my hair and damn near doing the same to my skull before burying its pointy self six inches into the dirt at my feet.
"The hell?" I said. "Did Psoglav–"
"No," Dumas replied, his face set in a frown. "If Psoglav had cracked a soul, he'da brought the whole damn cave down. And whatever that was, it came from outside."
"It couldn't have been the storm," I said, thinking aloud, "lightning doesn't make the fucking ground shake. Besides, it sounded like a goddamn bomb went off. It sounded like…"
Dumas watched me talk myself out. Then he supplied the same words my brain had. "An angel's wrath? That what you were gonna say?"
I said nothing, my mouth moving for a second like that of a dying fish before I took notice and closed it. Dumas was glaring at me now, and the frown that graced his face deepened into something harsher, angrier, more sinister. His squat, round frame seemed to swell until he dominated the narrow room, and his eyes raged with black fire. "
You
did this."
"What? No! Why the hell would you think–"
"Why? Gee, Sam, I don't know – maybe because when you came marching in here, you were pretty sure stealing Varela from you was
my
idea. Maybe because you blame me for the eternal predicament in which you find yourself. Maybe because despite all the havoc that you wreaked in life, and in the decades since you up and died, you still fancy yourself a Good Guy, and thought turning stoolie on me would be your fast-track into the Maker's good graces. And here I thought you and I were getting on so well."
Dumas, a full head shorter than me when we crawled in here, dropped the torch he'd been carrying and grabbed me by my lapels, lifting me until I was a good foot off the ground and we were nose to nose. The room seemed to elongate as the torch lit it from below. Dumas's face had elongated as well – to twice its normal size, it seemed – and when he spoke, I saw his mouth was now filled with row upon row of blackened, jagged teeth. "Tell me, Sammy," he said, his striated, spiked tongue lashing at his front teeth with every word, and rasping out the sibilant in my name, "did you ring up one of your angel-friends before you sauntered over here, maybe let 'em know where you were going? Did you promise to deliver me if they'd make your missing-soul problem go bye-bye?"
My feet cast wild shadows as they scrabbled for purchase, but it wasn't any use. "I didn't – I swear!"
He slammed me into the rock wall behind me. My head hit so hard I thought I'd puke. Then I did puke, so, you know, yay for being right.
"I think you're lying to me, Sammy," he said, and slammed me into the wall again, so hard my vision swam. Not that I minded much. In the best of times, Dumas wasn't much to look at, and these weren't the best of times. From what little I could see through the darkness and the circling cartoon birds, Dumas's current visage put Psoglav to shame. "But it hardly matters, does it? Either you called in the cavalry, or you were so fucking incompetent in get ting here they tracked you. You'll pay dearly either way, I assure you. But now, unfortunately, I have to delay the pleasure of flaying you alive, so I can deal with this fucking mess you've made. Don't worry, though – I'll be back before you know it."
A leathery rustle, the click of claws on stone, and Dumas was gone – gone so quickly that he was through the narrow aperture of Danny's hovel and out of sight before I even hit the ground.
Which I did.
Hard.
And then got whacked square in the back by a stone the size of a fucking cantaloupe falling from above.
This week was not my favorite ever.
The cantaloupe brought friends. Like half the fucking roof. Shit pelted me like this was a game of dodgeball and I was the last kid standing, only harder, meaner, and from above. OK, maybe it wasn't so much like a game of dodgeball as it was a game of try-not-to-get-stoned-to-death. I'd never played that one before, but I hoped to God I'd catch on quick.