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.”