Jim looked from Doc to Semple as another burst of gunfire rattled the here and now. “I don’t know about you two, but I’d be willing to move on someplace else.” Semple stared at him grimly but said nothing. Jim grimaced and shook his head. He knew she was upset, but the facts had to be faced. “I hate to say this, babe, but this place is trashed beyond repair and I really don’t see how it can do us or anyone else any good to get involved in some feminist jihad.”
To underline his point, a faint tremor shook the ground, but Semple could only snarl. “They wrecked my fucking place. I want to see someone suffer for what’s happened to it.”
The clap of a distant grenade going off made Doc shake his head. “It can be kinda hard to extract payback when you’re outnumbered and outgunned.”
Jim immediately backed him up. He felt sorry for Semple, but the shooting was coming closer. “He’s right, girl. Our best bet is to get the fuck out of here.”
Semple, however, was ready to make a stand. “And how the hell do we do that? After that damned Dragon Ride, none of us has an iota of energy left. We couldn’t so much as levitate across the room.”
She had a serious point, but Jim was starting to lose patience. “So what do you suggest we do?”
Before Semple could answer, something moved in the shadows by the fallen Moorish archway. A young woman stepped around a curved panel from the fallen dome. Her head was shaved cue-ball smooth, and she wore a red robe with a strange gold insignia of a clawhammer and three nails on the breast. This had to be the new uniform of Bernadette and her mutineers; the red of the habit was most likely symbolic of the blood spilled by the serial killer Jesus, while the meaning of the hammer and nails was pretty much self-evident. A little incongruously, the nun-militant wore paratroopers’ heavy-duty lace-up jump boots, and bandoleers of ammunition across her chest. She also held a late-twentieth-century machine gun trained on the three of them. The rebel nun seemed in no way intimidated by the sudden appearance of Semple, Jim, and Doc. The muzzle of the weapon didn’t waver as she moved through the arch and into the chamber.
“The three of you stay right where you are.”
***
A second concussion grenade exploded and the nearest rubber guard folded and collapsed, a thick, dark blue liquid flowing from a rent in its hide and oozing thickly across the floor of the corridor. Plaster drifted down from the ceiling and small fires burned amid the debris of previous explosions. Red-clad nuns advanced down the corridor in fast zigzag rushes, firing bursts from their MAC-10s and AK-47s. Even with the help of Semple’s strange, soft-shelled robot guards, it was clear to Mr. Thomas that Aimee and her handful of loyalists were fighting a losing battle. They were steadily being pushed back, room by room, corridor by corridor, staircase by staircase. The rebels, in their new red habits and freshly shaved heads, were taking casualties, but it hardly mattered. Clearly these red sisters were happy to go to the pods in the righteous cause of Bernadette, the Hammer of God, their leader and inspiration. If it came to a battle of attrition, Aimee’s little band simply lacked the numbers to win. The hopeless course was set for their last stand. Run out of her Heaven and forced to take refuge in the despised domain of her destroyed sibling, her options were scant: it was either go down fighting or give herself up for crucifixion.
Mr. Thomas had no desire to make Thomas the Goat’s last stand, but from where he stood at the far end of the burning corridor, as far from the fighting as he could get, he wasn’t holding out that much hope. His eyes were burning and watering from the smoke, and precious little retreat remained. He was starting to resign himself to taking on a new incarnation. He could only tell himself that maybe he’d gone as far as he could go in goat form; perhaps it was time for a change. As far has he could see, his one hope to remain in this reality was somehow to separate himself so the mutineers wouldn’t associate him with Aimee. He needed to make himself look like an innocent victim, or maybe even a helpless hostage. Could he get himself some kind of Lamb of God gig with the new regime, and lie around all day being fed beer and glossy magazines by bald, red-robed nuns? It was a long shot. He knew “Goat of God” didn’t exactly have the same ring to it.
Another grenade went off and started a flurry of commotion among the defenders. Mr. Thomas couldn’t quite see what was happening through all the smoke and dust until the dirty white rag was waved aloft tied to a piece of broken lath. That message was unmistakable. Aimee McPherson had given up the fight. The towel had been thrown in. Mr. Thomas knew it wasn’t a flag of truce. It had to be unconditional surrender. As far as he was concerned, the only question that remained was whether or not a goat could be crucified.
***
“It would seem we have a Mexican standoff.”
Despite the machine pistol the red-robed nun had pointed at Doc, a lot of her militancy dropped away when she found herself staring down the barrel of the Gun That Belonged to Elvis. The legendary pistol had magically appeared in Doc’s right hand, trained at her head. At the sight of her confusion, Doc laughed. “I wouldn’t be too upset, my dear. Drunk and sober, I’ve been doing this kind of thing for a very, very long time. It’s no disgrace to be faced down by Doc Holliday.” He inclined his head and looked more closely at the young woman. “Don’t I know you?”
The rebel nun looked sheepish. “Yeah, Doc. You know me. You’d probably recognize me straightaway if it wasn’t for the haircut.”
Doc frowned. “You’re . . . ”
“I’m Aura-Lee. I used to work at . . . ”
Doc smiled. He didn’t need to be told any more. “Right.”
“Until I renounced the sins of the flesh-”
“The sins of the flesh? Aren’t we getting a little overbearingly Victorian? From what I recall, you used to quite enjoy your work.”
“I only enjoyed it because I didn’t know any better. Bernadette told us-”
“Bernadette? Who the hell is Bernadette?
“Bernadette is the Hammer of God.”
Doc was starting to look as though he didn’t have time for this. “What the fuck kind of title is the Hammer of God?”
“You knew her as Trixie.”
“Trixie? She’s behind all this? That troublemaking bitch is calling herself ‘Bernadette the Hammer of God’? I always had her pegged as whorehouse lawyer, but I didn’t think she’d go as far as to infect you all with bloody Jesus.”
Aura-Lee looked exceedingly unhappy. “I always liked you, Doc. You always treated me on the up and up, but you have to be careful what you say about Bernadette. Very soon, she’s going to be deciding your fate.”
Doc’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “A lot of people have been convinced they could decide Doc Holliday’s fate.”
“Please be careful. She’ll be here very soon.”
***
A cherub, scarcely taller than Mr. Thomas, clad in a red diaper with little fleecy wings growing out of his back, clambered over a pile of rubble. Mr. Thomas might have laughed at the spectacle except for the big chrome .44 Magnum the cherub had gripped in his chubby fist, and the intimation that, small as he might be, he knew how to use it. When he saw Mr. Thomas, he stopped in his tracks and brought the gun up. “Feel lucky, punk? I suggest you raise your hands, nice and easy, now.”
Mr. Thomas didn’t like having guns pointed at him, especially by fat little cherubs with implausible baby voices pretending they were Clint Eastwood. It took him a moment to find his own voice, and when he did, it rasped from smoke and apprehension. “I can’t raise my hands up. All I have is hooves.”