He looks up at me.
“What I want to do is take you apart. Down to the smallest sliver of your being. I want to see you laid out on a table like a flesh puzzle and put you back together again in my own image. I’ve never had the heart to test the limits of nephilim body on my own family, and even though you and I are different sorts of nephilim, I suspect that the results will be applicable. Don’t you? For instance, I wonder how many organs you can lose before you die.”
He goes back to the table and brings back a scalpel. I wish I could say that this is the first time I’ve been tortured like this, but it isn’t. The Hellions cut me up pretty nicely when I first got to Hell. They’d never seen a live human before. But for them, it was mostly just having a good time, kicking around the weak new kid. Ferox, on the other hand, seems like the real thing. A science groupie with a grudge against God, who rejected his family, and the Devil, who hasn’t rescued them. And right now my sorry carcass is the complaint department.
Ferox says, “Don’t worry. I have no interest in killing you. I’m going to take you to the brink, and then let you rest and heal. When you have, we’ll move on to other tests. All right? Good. Now hold still. This might sting a little.”
He drives the whole head of the scalpel into my gut a few inches below the navel and starts dragging the blade north. My body shakes. I can’t help it. It’s rejecting the blade, this situation, the whole world, trying to shake it off like a dog with mange. I breathe deep. In through my nose and out through my mouth. I won’t give this fucker the satisfaction of screaming. But I might faint and that would be embarrassing too. He cuts up three, four, five inches and stops. My legs and boots are warm with blood. My head spins. I hold my head up, not wanting to black out.
“It’s been bothering me,” says Ferox. “Why are you only wearing one glove? Did you lose the other?”
He pulls my glove off, and dazed as I am, I can still see his eyes go wide when he sees my Kissi hand. He pushes up my sleeve. Seeing that the prosthetic goes up farther, he slices my sleeve all the way to my shoulder, where the Kissi arm and I are attached.
“Glorious. Glorious. That’s not a gift from God. Who have you been spending time with, you naughty boy?”
Ferox taps the scalpel on the arm, listening to it like it’s a tuning fork. He probes it with the tip and tries to slice it. When it doesn’t work he presses harder until the scalpel’s head snaps off. He drops it and goes back to the brazier. It gives me a moment to breathe. I’m lucky that the feeling in the Kissi arm is a little dull. But even though he can’t hurt the arm, I can feel everything he’s doing. I’m getting paranoid about the cut in my belly. Like if I squirm around too much, my intestines or my liver might fall out.
Ferox comes back with the piece of flaming wood and holds it under the arm. This time I can’t hold back. I don’t scream but he knows why I’m groaning. His cut-up face splits into a wide smile.
“You can feel it, can’t you? Not only does this lovely thing move, but it feels too. It’s miraculous.”
He turns to the other Shoggots.
“Who here thinks I deserve an arm like this?”
My head is spinning like a carnival teacup ride. The crowd, on the other hand, is as excited as if he was busting out with an encore of “Free Bird.”
“Get me the saw,” he says.
I’m losing too much blood. I can’t stay awake to fight him. Who am I trying to fool? I’m way beyond fighting anyone. I can barely stay awake. Any second now, my insides are going to slide onto the floor.
I feel pressure on my arm as Ferox tests the best angles to start sawing, but where my head is taking me everything is fine and nothing hurts.
SCREAMS WAKE ME up. How shocked am I as it slowly comes to me that the screaming isn’t coming from my mouth but from across the room? I can’t exactly see what’s happening. It looks like a fight. I think.
The brazier is on the floor and the wall is crawling with weird shadows. I can see the Shoggots all right. Then something else. Gray streaks. Flashes of knives and swords. One of the streaks stops for a second. It’s a man in a gray suit that covers his whole body except for his eyes. There’s something else. He’s short. About four feet tall and slashing away with a blade almost as long as he is tall. He and the other blurs move like psycho-fuck pint-size ninjas.
Then there are hands on me. Someone undoes the chains and I slip to the floor. The world is a series of blurry snapshots. I think I hear a different kind of shouting. Maybe see Candy’s face. Or maybe my insides really are gone and this is a new way to feel death. That’s okay. It seems like I’m lying down, even if I’m not. I’d rather die comfortably than die chained to the wall in some asshole’s man cave.
And that’s pretty much all there is before I stop caring and pass out.
I WAKE UP on a blanket. Candy is next to me, cross-legged, holding my human hand. We’re back in the big room where the fight with the Shoggots first started. Everyone else— Brigitte, Vidocq, Traven, and Delon—is there too, talking, eating, and drinking with the gray mini-ninjas. The fuckers might be small but they’re covered in an impressive amount of Shoggot blood.
“How long was I out?”
“A couple of hours. Think you can move?”
I try to sit up and make it up onto my elbows. Candy has to pull me up the rest of the way. I put my hand on my stomach. Someone has stitched me up and wrapped me in a bandage. Some kind of healing ointment seeps through the material.
“Vidocq did it,” says Candy. “I think he’s been getting lessons from Allegra.”
Delon comes over and kneels next to us.
“How are you feeling?”
“How far are we from the baths?”
“I don’t know. I’m not exactly sure where we are anymore.”
“Figure it out. I’d like to be home when the world ends.”
Delon nods.
“If I can find some landmarks, I’m sure I can get us there.”
“That’s fucking reassuring.”
Delon gets up without saying anything and walks away.
My head has stopped spinning and things are starting to fall together.
“Where did you find those Grays?” I say.
“Is that what they’re called? Hattie knew where to find them,” says Candy.
“Sub Rosa kids told stories about them. I didn’t know there were any left. They’re supposed to be from England or maybe Scotland or Ireland. Somewhere with bad teeth. Ancient fuckers. Old, old magic. I don’t know their real name, but don’t call them fairies or goblins or trolls or any of that Peter Pan shit. They’re real sensitive about it, especially around Americans.”
“Hattie made a deal with them. She said there was a great wizard who would owe them a favor.”
“Great. Where is she?”
“She took off before we headed back. I don’t think she cared who won the fight as long as someone hurt the Shoggots.”
“Christ.”
“All this bullshit is because of Aelita. It’s made me think. Tell me something. Why don’t you ever ask me anything about Doc?”
“Doc Kinski is dead. Why would I?”
“He was your father.”
“That was just a technicality.”
Doc Kinski’s real name was Uriel. He was an archangel and the winged bastard that fucked with my mother, left her lonely and with a kid she didn’t really want. And Aelita murdered him.
“Don’t talk about him that way. And you’re lying. You want to know but you never ask.”
“Like I said. He’s dead. Deader than either of us will ever be. When an angel dies there’s nothing left. It’s like he was never there.”
Candy looks away at the others. Brigitte looks a little past the sell-by date, though not as bad as me. Vidocq has bandaged both of her arms and her left hand. Traven has his arm around her. She leans against him.
“Doc cared about you. He never said it because you’re both idiots, but he worried about you.”
“Can we do family therapy later? I’m busy hemorrhaging.”
Candy doesn’t say anything for a minute.
I say, “I should have brought some Aqua Regia with me.”
“Yeah, you need booze with a cut-up belly. You could have died back there.”
“But I didn’t. You Robin Hooded me.”She looks down at her hands.
“What’s going to happen when we die? Am I going to go to Hell? I’ve killed people. Not like today. When I was feeding.”
“You’re not human. I don’t know that the laws are the same for you.”
“Did you see any Lurkers in Hell?”
“Some.”
“Then maybe they do. Besides, you’re not exactly human and you’re always saying you’re going to Hell.”
“I’m human enough. Half of me is. I figure that’s enough for a ticket Downtown.”
She holds the torn halves of my shirt together like maybe they’ll heal like skin. They don’t.
“Thanks for showing me a little bit of Hell,” she says. “I’m not as afraid of it anymore.”
“What’s this all about?”
She takes a breath.
“What’s going to happen to us when we die?”
“I don’t know. I never saw any Jades in Hell and no one knows what happens to nephilim.”
“Hmm,” she says like she’s thinking.
I say, “What you really want to know is that after we die, are we ever going to see each other again.”
“Hell didn’t look so bad.”
“Look, I’m just speculating. I don’t even know if either of us has a regular soul.”
“I think if one of us dies and leaves the other alone, that’s fucked.”
I pull her head down onto my shoulder.
“Then let’s not die. Dying’s for losers.”
“Sorry to tell you, tough guy, but I think that includes us.”
I shrug and let her go.
“I don’t have any answers. We’ll have to figure things out as we go along, just like every other asshole on the planet.”
“Okay. But when this is over we’re going to talk about Doc.”
“Oh, good. Something to live for.”
One of the Grays comes over. He’s a little taller and looks a little older than the rest. His hair and short beard are streaked with silver.
“Would you give us a few moments alone, lass?”
Candy kisses my bruised knuckles and goes to sit with Vidocq.
The little man sits down across from me. In the crap light it looks like he’s eating chunks of venison or something. Then I see that he’s cutting up one of Vidocq’s Power Bars with a folding knife.
“Is that good?”
“Passable,” he says. “The priest gave it to me. He’s a funny one. Not as much of a stick up his arse as most of the pope’s curs.”
“He was excommunicated.”
“Ah. I like him better already,” he says. “So you’re the great wizard.”
“I’m Stark. Just Stark.”
I put out my hand. He takes it in his surprisingly large, callused mitt and shakes.
“I’m Arawn. Leader of this lost, buggered band.”
“Thanks for getting me out of there. Did you leave any Shoggots standing?”
“A few. Though not enough to trouble a church mouse, much less a grand wizard such as yourself.”
He can barely get it out without laughing.
“Fuck them. No one is going to miss them.”
He points to my midsection with his knife.
“You’re recovering well from your wounds.”
“I heal fast.”
“That’s good. Not always, though, is it? I heard of a vampire back in the old country. They’re fast healers too, you know. This parish father got ahold of one, don’t know how, but he did. Kept it in the basement of the church for weeks. Tortured it horribly. Said he was trying to understand the beast so he could conquer them for God. I think he was just having fun. Just goes to show you that healing fast isn’t always a good thing. Torture him all night. Let him heal all day and then start again. I think that’s what your friend back there had in mind for you.”
“Interesting story. A little bird told me that you Grays don’t like vampires.”
He cuts off and swallows another piece of the Power Bar.
“Just the ones that make bargains they don’t keep.”
I’ll have to ask Tykho about that sometime. Assuming she didn’t send whoever is following us. Then I’ll probably have to kill her.
I feel around for my coat.
“So, you’re satisfied with our services?” says Arawn.
“Yeah. I think I owe you a favor now.”
I take out a Malediction and light it. Instantly I feel better.
“Indeed you do.”
“What do you want?”
“What can you do?”
I take a long drag off the smoke. Wonder if the smoke is going to leak out through damaged lungs and fill my gut. I guess we’ll know if I start farting smoke rings.
“To tell you the truth, most of the hoodoo I’ve done over the last few years has been about killing or stealing things. I’m rusty at pretty much everything else, but I’m willing to give it a try.”
“That’s not what I was hoping to hear.”
“Sorry. Let’s try it this way. Tell me the first thing that comes into your head. The first thing you want.”