Eventually he finished screaming profanity and went away.
Rockbush remained very still and hoped his pain would likewise depart. * * *
Darmo House, the Kitchen Terrin had a gift for depression. When he was in the mood for inflicting despair and misery he waded in with both fists and maniacal glee; it was one of his great pleasures in life. He could bring down helium and not break a sweat.
"So," I said, "essentially the outcome is we die, you die, everybody dies? Consumed by flesh-eating demons who get off on death energy, terror, and destruction on a ma.s.sive scale?"
"Pretty much," he said, picking a stray mushroom from his plate. He chewed on it, staring into s.p.a.ce, exuding contentment.
This b.u.mmer news, I hardly need mention, totally eclipsed the historic and delicious debut of Pizza a la Myhr in Rumpock. Filima and Shankey ate a little, made some half-hearted yummy noises to be polite, and mostly stared in horror at Terrin, who scarfed nearly half the pie down as he talked of planetwide annihilation at the hands-or rather teeth-of starving hordes of demons who were likely to pour through onto this plane at any moment. I wanted to think he colored his narrative that dark on purpose just to have more pizza for himself, but the odds were against it.
"Botello can do that?" I had a hard time believing just one guy could wipe out a world that hadn"t yet developed atomic weaponry.
"All he has to do is open the right astral door so the h.e.l.l-plane guys-demons to you-come rolling in to do their doomsday gig."
"Why would they want to?"
"Just because."
"But why?"
"It"s what theydo . If they were nice they wouldn"t be in h.e.l.l!"
"Good point. And out of this Botello gets a bunch of magic power?"
"Which he can"t handle."
"You know that for sure?"
"Pretty much. If his most advanced work has him still relying on props like that junk in the bas.e.m.e.nt, no way could he be remotely ready on a mental or psychic level to handle the real-deal energies that will be slamming around out there. He"ll get turned inside out fast, and that"s only if he"s lucky. If not, he"ll get turned inside out slow. Let"s open a pool on it. I"ll bet fifty it"ll be slow and they"ll make it go on-oh-for a couple weeks, our time. Any takers?"
Shankey seemed to understand what he was getting at and scowled. Filima looked like she"d tuned out everything. As for me, I was used to the black att.i.tude. And this after all his complaints about the color of the velvet curtains. "You don"t have fifty, in theirs or any other currency," I said.
Terrin shrugged. "When the end comes money ain"t gonna help n.o.body, no how."
"What can we do to stop it?"
"Stop it? Who wants to stop it?"
"I do!"
He grumped. "Mr. Tree-Hugging Goodie-Goodie, of courseyou would. I"m tired of this incarnation. The Multiverse has been f.u.c.king around with me long enough, I"ll be glad to kiss this life bye-bye."
"That"s fine for you, but the rest of us aren"t quite ready to leave yet."
"Hey, it"ll befun to start over. I"ve done it dozens of times. Nothing like getting burned at the stake or cut in two by cannon fire or-"
"Terrin . . ." The last thing we needed was a recital of his past lives and how they"d ended for him. Things were gruesome enough at the moment.
He laughed and sucked down more pizza.
"Anyway," I continued, "if the Powers That Be put Filima in the cellar with the mallet to delay things, I"m fairly sure it was to allow time for your arrival here soyou could fix the problem. As you are so fond of saying, there"s no such thing as coincidence."
"Prolly so. Just like them to screw me like that. I swear I might as well drop my pants, hand them a broomstick with a sandpaper condom, and bend over to make it that much easier." He looked up at the shadowy ceiling high above. "Youhear me? I know what you"re doing, and it ain"t funny!"
"On the other hand, I seriously doubt this world is having an apocalypse just to inconvenience you."
"Of course it is. That"s how things really work!"
I got a sudden flash of inspiration. "What about Heaven?"
"What about it?"
"Doesn"t this worldhave one? They got a h.e.l.l, shouldn"t there be a Heaven to balance things?"
"Yeah, they got one of those. I asked around. It"s a nice one."
Filima and Shankey nodded agreement on that point, looking hopeful.
"So why don"t we call for help fromthat side?" I asked. "Then we could have hordes of angels pouring in to stop the demons."
He rolled his eyes. "You ever see a real apocalypse? They"re ugly, lots of property damage, which includes people. You wouldn"t like it, trust me. The idea here is tonot let things get that far." "Okay. Very sensible. Another question."
"Surprise me."
"All right. On one hand we got a bunch of starved demons wanting to vacation in this Reality. Why is it that there aren"t a bunch of angels wanting to get in here, too, only instead of eating people they run around being nice to everybody?"
"Because they"re in the Heaven-plane."
"So?"
"I"ll put it this way: if you had the penthouse suite in Trump Towers rent free, guilt free, tax free forever with everything you always wanted right there and then when you wanted it, would you wanna visit a Third World trash dump to feel even happier?"
"I see your point."
"Exactly. What help we get in this Reality is the angel version of Peace Corps volunteers. They"re dedicated types, and point the natives in the best direction, but it"s the locals who have to do the work. If the trouble is truly over our heads, thenmaybe we"ll get some kind of divine intervention, but don"t expect it. The Powers That Be are a twisted gang with a warped sense of humor."
"Sure explains my life."
"And mine.
"Excuse me?" This from Shankey. "Isthere a way to avert the disaster and save the world?"
Terrin slugged back more beer and belched. Yes, the walls did visibly shake. "Uh-huh," he said, then looked at me, smirking again. "Butyou won"t like it."
That was a given. "Okay, what is it? Both barrels, don"t spare the buckshot."
"You"ve no idea."
"We"re all agreed on that point. What is it?"
"You go to the astral plane."
Hah?I blanked for a second. "But I don"t have a ticket."
"Don"t be a fuzzle. Think about it."
Digestion interfered with my cognitive processes. I was full of beer and pizza, having overindulged in the latter, figuring since it was my last meal, I might as well pig out. "I"m sorry, but I misheard. I thought you said I should go to the astral plane."
He tapped his finger on the tip of his nose. Grinning. Boy, did he have a lot of teeth. "Specifically, to h.e.l.l." I was suddenly on overload with outrage and panicked b.u.t.terflies. Neither combined too well with the beer and pizza. "What are you talking about? Did I hear right? What"s going on? Answer the last one first."
"You go there so you can stop Botello."
At this Shankey leaned forward, all attention, and Filima sat up straight, coming alert. "Deal in what way?" he asked.
"Kill him," said Terrin. "What else?"
I choked, on the verge of blanking completely. "Kill a dead man?"
They all stared at me.
Well,someone had to say it. I waved them over to Terrin. "It"s his idea! Talk to him!"
"You want to kill Botello?" asked Filima.
"Call it soul-death," said Terrin. "Just take him out of planar existence once and for all. Then he won"t be able to reincarnate a generation or three down the line and start trouble all over again. I know his type, he doesn"t give up."
"Isn"t that kinda harsh?" I asked.
"Harsh? The guy is f.u.c.king around with ending this world, planning the deaths of untold millions, is in the process of ripping apart the very veils that keep the Multiverse running smooth and more or less sane, and you think one little soul-death to prevent it all isharsh ?"
"I withdraw the question."
Terrin flapped one hand to indicate our surroundings. "You wanna save the world, snuff Botello."
"Great, fine, wonderful. But I heard you sayI was going to the astral plane . . . with a side trip to h.e.l.l?
No way, Jose. That kind of tripping isyour department, as you are so fond of reminding me."
"Not this time around."
"Yes, this time around and for all times around! I"m not trained for visiting other planes. You"ve told me how dangerous it is."
"You"ll be safe with me running the tour."
"That"s not the issue. Why the h.e.l.l are you even thinking of sending me?"
"I got my reasons."
"So share!"
He shot me an annoyed look. I flared my lip whiskers right back at him. "Excuse us," he said to Filimaand Shankey. "Private conference."
He slipped off his chair and led the way out of the kitchen into a hall, then to another hall. Big place. He finally stopped at a window with a view to the outside. The house and grounds being on a hill, we could see down to some of the city-and the black fog flowing through its streets.
I crossed my arms. "Okay. Give. Whyme? You"re better equipped for that kind of thing, you float around the planes all the time."
"Yeah, but I don"t bother with a physical presence there. To do what needs to be done requires a solid body on-"
"Wait, I thought an astral bod wasn"t solid."
"Not on this side, and usually not over there. But for this job the rules have to be different."
This was way out of my league. "Which means you should go, youknow all that stuff!"
"Yeah, but I"m needed here. Now shuttup and listen: when I"m playing tourist I don"t establish a physical body on the planes. I can only do that when I have an anchor on this side to guide me back. There are no wizards left here powerful enough for the job, so you have to be the one to travel whileI act asyour anchor. If there was any other way I"d try, but we"re on our own. We have to brilliantly improvise."
Wehe says. Uh-huh. Suuurrre.
He continued. "You"ll need a planar equivalent of a physical body there so you can do the work. That"s what takes so much energy. I"m going to channel it to you along the anchor line."
"What kind of energy?"
"We don"t have time for Wizardry 101. Just trust me to get it right."
"Come on, there"s plenty of people more magically inclined than me." I was in some ways magically un-inclined. Terrin said it had to do with my feline side. "What about Filima? Can"t she anchor you?"
He shook his head. "It"d be asking her to hold a train in place with a string. And I can"t send her; she"s too emotionally involved to focus."
"Or Shankey? He"s a soldier; he knows weapons. You wanna kill someone, that"s his kind of job."
"Shankey doesn"t have the magical moxie not to freak at the stuff he"d see."
"And I wouldn"t?"
"You"re used to special effects. Besides, those two don"t trust me enough yet to forge a strong enough psychic link."
"Woo, I"m so surprised. Find someone who does."
He showed his teeth at me again, which wasn"t the same as a grin. "I already have." "Dammit, Terrin . . ." Like it or not, all the traveling we"d done together had established a bond between us. And, like it or not, I trusted him. So far as magic went I trusted him. Really. When it came to equally splitting a pizza that was another matter. "I"m not up to snuff when it comes to magic. My cat and human DNA mix-"
"Makes you ideal for the job."
Hah? Whazzat?
"Lissen," he said. "Cats are aware of magic, but it doesn"t affect them in the same way as humans. You"ll have a huge immunity to some of the stuff over there. And no one else here-including my otherwise flawless self-has your senses, reflexes, or strength."
He had a point. Though my body was mostly human, the cat in me gave me a h.e.l.l of an edge, twenty-four/seven. I was so used to it I generally forgot it. "Flattering, if entirely true, but-hey!" Then the really big question popped into my buzzed brain. I"d been too busy making objections to think straight.