What"s ... wrong? Ca.s.sie wondered.
"See? Useless," the Morning Star rea.s.sured. "To all but me. Your b.l.o.o.d.y friend is right, Ca.s.sie. I don"t need you, I just need your blood."
The words spun around her mind. She was trying to direct her thoughts, but she was thinking of the other things Angelese had said. If an Etheress dies in h.e.l.l, the result is a tremendous explosion. But did she really have the nerve to kill herself? It might destroy the Nectoport, but it would not destroy Lucifer, an immortal. And it wouldn"t even necessarily foil his plan, which she still didn"t understand. My blood? For what?
Then it hit her, so obvious. He"s going to use my blood to- "Excellent, Etheress," Iblis read her mind. "That"s my plan. The Hex-Clone you stole a glance at is an exact physical duplicate. I will Retrogate back to Golgotha, to Christ"s tomb, and replace your Savior"s body with my Clone. And on the Third Day, it will rise again from the dead. But before that, I"m going to transfuse your blood into it, and it will have your powers. It will reappear to Mary, and kill her. It will reappear to the Apostles, and murder them. It will kill everything it comes into contact with for the entirety of the Retrogation. And what will that result in?"
Christianity will never exist, Ca.s.sie thought. It will never be born ...
(III).
"I don"t know what you mean," Walter said. "Go out in style?"
"One last ride before the end of it all," No-name muttered. Her eyes darted. "Oops. Looks like you get to have some more fun first."
Fun? Walter heard the clatter of armor himself. In a moment, the empty street wasn"t empty anymore. They were blocked off again, on either side. Not Conscripts, Ushers, or Golems, this time-an entire regiment of Grand Dukes, their great horned heads throwing shadows down the street in a tapestry of sharp points.
They didn"t look happy.
They began to march forward. Some, he saw, even had guns, crude ones-as in the Revolutionary War-but firearms nonetheless. Through the phalanx, their barrels aimed, then jerked as they fired. Plumes of sooty smoke poured forth.
"Miss me," Walter whispered, unshocked even by the potential, and the atrocious sound. They were clearly aiming low, for his legs, because they needed him alive. This he easily deducted, even though he still wasn"t sure exactly what they needed him for.
The hand-poured, iron-ball bullets all missed. Those fired from the left cut down the first line of Grand Dukes on the right, and vice-versa. Walter was bored. The things were ten-feet tall, hundreds of them, and more terrifying than anything he"d seen here.
But he was purely and simply bored.
"Go away," he said to each phalanx. The words from his mouth plowed both regiments away until they could no longer be seen, as effectively as bulldozers against piles of autumn leaves. In only a second, the street was vacant again. Silent. Calm.
"That was a piece of cake, No-name," Walter said.
"Don"t get c.o.c.ky!"
She"s right, he considered. Something serious is going on here. I"m part of it. I better not let this Etherean stuff go to my head.
"What now?" he asked.
Her head sighed under his arm and her eyes flicked up to the shining black edifice. "Look at the Bastille, Walter. I"ve told you what it is. If it"s destroyed, then all the souls who"ve been condemned will be released."
Souls that otherwise wouldn"t be here. Walter looked at the indestructible pyramid. "I can"t destroy that."
"Are you sure there"s not a way?"
"I don"t know what you"re talking about!"
"Be deductive. Be the mathematician. If an otherwise good person could destroy that place by a suicidal act, would that person"s immortal soul be condemned to h.e.l.l?"
No, Walter deduced. No. So what is it, exactly, that she"s trying to tell me?
Then he thought back to what she"d previously said, something about going out in style ...
(IV).
The revelation was clear now: the plans he had for the Hex-Clone. Angelese remained staked to the floor by the pikes piercing her chest. And Ca.s.sic ...
Ca.s.sie was, indeed, useless.
My powers don"t work against the Ushers. She shot a thought of death at the Biowizard, too. Nothing. The net abraded her face, incising her frustration. I can"t do anything. And even if I had the courage to kill myself, what good would that do? And I CAN"T kill myself because I"m tied up in this friggin" net!
"And look who we"ve brought to see you."
The Morning Star"s voice was all over the Nectoport, his glee perhaps, in spite of the slashes across the unfathomable face.
"Look, look," he whispered.
Ca.s.sie screamed. Something was dragged forward by one of the Ushers. At first Ca.s.sie thought it was a sack drawn by a rope.
But it wasn"t.
It was Lissa, or what was left of her, drawn by her hair. Her arms and legs had been removed, and in their place were just her hands and feet surgically reconnected at the shoulder and hip joints.
"This is how she will spend eternity. I"ll see to it. She"ll be on display like this at the zoo. And she"ll drown in sewage every day, but won"t die."
Lissa"s head lolled on the floor. Her eyes beseeched her sister. "Please help me ..."
More uselessness. Ca.s.sie sobbed against the net. That was all she could do.
"Ah," the aduw Allah intoned. "Such lovely regret. It"s so sweet. But I guess it"s time now, isn"t it? Time to return to my mansion, and fill my Clone with your blood."
Angelese ground her teeth. Her violet eyes, rimmed by beige, were wide open on Ca.s.sie, when she said, "Ca.s.sie, look at the Biowizard ..."
What? But she did as was told, and her own eyes swerved toward the squat cloaked figure standing just behind Lucifer. From his fingers, the pendant still dangled, the pendant with the tiny stone on the end of it, glowing like a green ember.
"Now look at your arm," Angelese said.
My... arm. Ca.s.sie turned her head in the net, still not understanding. Her arm. She could see the small line of st.i.tches that R.J. had applied at the clinic when she"d been cut. The wound was swollen now, flecked with dried blood, and now she could see something else.
Something embedded in the wound, showing through the st.i.tches.
Something glowing.
(V).
No-name"s words echoed in Walter"s: If it"s destroyed, then all the souls who"ve been condemned will be released.
He looked at the arcane structure, shouted every idea of destruction he could think of at it, but nothing happened. "I can"t destroy it! I can"t even scratch it!"
"There. Is. A way," No-name stuttered. She sighed again, wearied. She even sounded forlorn. "I have to go now, Walter. It"s time for me to destroy myself."
"No! I don"t want you to go!"
"It"s my destiny. And it"s no fun being a severed head." Walter couldn"t manage the idea. "If you"re destroyed, what will happen to you?"
"This head is all that remains of my Spirit Body. If it"s destroyed, my soul will be transferred to some other life form in h.e.l.l. It"s potluck; I don"t get to choose. I could be transferred to a demon"s body, a Troll"s, a Griffin"s, a Caco-Tick, or even a Bapho-Flea that spends its entire existence living on a rat"s a.s.s. But it"s a chance I have to take. I have to take the risk."
She"s lying, Walter thought, so not to break her oath. She already knows what will happen to her.
"I understand," he said, teary eyed. She"s got to do what she"s got to do. She knows the future. He took her head out from under his arm, held it up and looked at her face. "Would you like me to destroy your head for you? I"ll look for a mallet or a brick or something. Or I"ll use my powers."
"Thank you, but that won"t be necessary. There"s a way for me to do it myself, and I"m going to do it now. But remember what I said earlier. Be deductive."
Walter nodded, wiped his eyes. He"d already figured it out.
"I"ve already told you, I"m cursed to never reveal a cabalistic secret. If I challenge the curse, I smolder to nothing-ness. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"If an angel commits suicide in the Living World, the resultant flux of released etheric energy becomes fissionable. You know what fissionable means."
"Yes. But I"m not an angel, and this isn"t the Living World."
Smoke was leaking from No-name"s ears. "If an Etherean commits suicide in h.e.l.l ... it"s the same thing, the same result."
Walter"s eyes went wide.
Now smoke was pouring off the head, the hair burning off. Smoke poured out of her mouth as she spoke her last words: "My name is a preternatural secret too, Walter. I can never reveal it without the consequences."
"I understand," Walter sobbed.
"Goodbye, Walter." No-name smiled through the crackling and smoke. "My name is Afet."
The head hissed away in his hands and disappeared as a stream of fine ash.
"Goodbye, Afet," Walter said, choking. I"ll miss you ...
His hands held nothing now. Walter was alone. But he understood everything now, everything she"d implied. Deduction came easily to geniuses.
He scratched his head. Hmm.
Down the street a lone Grand Duke staggered toward him. On a chain-mail belt was a crude pistol, which the Duke was drawing.
"You!" Walter shouted. "Don"t shoot!"
The Grand Duke froze, his great horns poised.
Walter jogged up to the creature. It simply stared down at him, covering him with its broad shadow.
"Gimme that gun."
The Grand Duke handed it to him.
Walter looked at it, confused. It wasn"t like a modern pistol, just a metal tube on a shaped piece of wood that served as a grip. There was a trigger, and on top, a hammer that vised a piece of flint.
"Is this thing loaded?" Walter asked.
The Grand Duke nodded.
"How does it work?"
The Duke took the pistol, c.o.c.ked it, then returned it to Walter"s hands.
I guess that"s it. "Thanks," he said. "Now pretend you"re on a pogo stick and pogo your ugly a.s.s out of here."
The Grand Duke hopped away.
Walter wasn"t afraid. Hefting the pistol, he walked leisurely into the obsidian doorway of the Bastille of Otherwise Souls.
(VI).
Something glowing, beneath the st.i.tches. The same emerald-green.
"That"s right," Lucifer confirmed. "Stealthy, yes? It was planted on you, by my confidant. It"s a chip from the Rock of Boolya. Sorcery is science here, Etheress. What"s in your flesh is the same as what hangs from my Wizard"s pendant. It damps your powers."
"Ca.s.sie, get that chip out of your arm!" Angelese shouted, then groaned as the pikes were twisted deeper into her chest.
Eosphoros smiled. "Yes. Please do."
Ca.s.sie tried to drag her hand up against the net. She would tear the emerald chip from her flesh. But it was impossible. The Usher behind her was twisting the net so tightly, she was coc.o.o.ned. She couldn"t move.
I"ve got to get this son of a b.i.t.c.h OFF ME! she screamed at herself, but there was no way.
Then Angelese said, "Think. Remember."
Satan held his impossible-to-see grin. "Think what, Caliginaut? Remember what?"
"R.J.! At the clinic! It had to have been the same language we saw at the Archives!"
Ca.s.sie"s eyes bloomed. Yes, yes... But how could she possibly remember that?
Think!
Lucifer"s unG.o.dly brow turned up. "What are you babbling about, angel?"
Then the Biowizard collapsed.
This caught them all by surprise. Iblis rushed to the fallen Wizard, shook him. "What the f.u.c.k is going on!"
The Biowizard"s black eyes fluttered open. He was coming out of some sort of communicative trance. "My lord, 1-1-I-"