“It couldn’t have been the storm,” I said, thinking aloud, “lightning doesn’t make the fucking ground shake. Besides, it sounded like a goddamn bomb went off. It sounded like…”
Dumas watched me talk myself out. Then he supplied the same words my brain had. “An angel’s wrath? That what you were gonna say?”
I said nothing, my mouth moving for a second like that of a dying fish before I took notice and closed it. Dumas was glaring at me now, and the frown that graced his face deepened into something harsher, angrier, more sinister. His squat, round frame seemed to swell until he dominated the narrow room, and his eyes raged with black fire. “You did this.”
“What? No! Why the hell would you think–”
“Why? Gee, Sam, I don’t know —maybe because when you came marching in here, you were pretty sure stealing Varela from you was my idea. Maybe because you blame me for the eternal predicament in which you find yourself. Maybe because despite all the havoc that you wreaked in life, and in the decades since you up and died, you still fancy yourself a Good Guy, and thought turning stoolie on me would be your fast-track into the Maker’s good graces. And here I thought you and I were getting on so well.”
Dumas, a full head shorter than me when we crawled in here, dropped the torch he’d been carrying and grabbed me by my lapels, lifting me until I was a good foot off the ground and we were nose to nose. The room seemed to elongate as the torch lit it from below. Dumas’s face had elongated as well —to twice its normal size, it seemed —and when he spoke, I saw his mouth was now filled with row upon row of blackened, jagged teeth. “Tell me, Sammy,” he said, his striated, spiked tongue lashing at his front teeth with every word, and rasping out the sibilant in my name, “did you ring up one of your angel-friends before you sauntered over here, maybe let ’em know where you were going? Did you promise to deliver me if they’d make your missing-soul problem go bye-bye?”
My feet cast wild shadows as they scrabbled for purchase, but it wasn’t any use. “I didn’t —I swear!”
He slammed me into the rock wall behind me. My head hit so hard I thought I’d puke. Then I did puke, so, you know, yay for being right.
“I think you’re lying to me, Sammy,” he said, and slammed me into the wall again, so hard my vision swam. Not that I minded much. In the best of times, Dumas wasn’t much to look at, and these weren’t the best of times. From what little I could see through the darkness and the circling cartoon birds, Dumas’s current visage put Psoglav to shame. “But it hardly matters, does it? Either you called in the cavalry, or you were so fucking incompetent in get ting here they tracked you. You’ll pay dearly either way, I assure you. But now, unfortunately, I have to delay the pleasure of flaying you alive, so I can deal with this fucking mess you’ve made. Don’t worry, though —I’ll be back before you know it.”
A leathery rustle, the click of claws on stone, and Dumas was gone —gone so quickly that he was through the narrow aperture of Danny’s hovel and out of sight before I even hit the ground.
Which I did.
Hard.
And then got whacked square in the back by a stone the size of a fucking cantaloupe falling from above.
This week was not my favorite ever.
The cantaloupe brought friends. Like half the fucking roof. Shit pelted me like this was a game of dodgeball and I was the last kid standing, only harder, meaner, and from above. OK, maybe it wasn’t so much like a game of dodgeball as it was a game of try-not-to-get-stoned-to-death. I’d never played that one before, but I hoped to God I’d catch on quick.
Got up. To my knees, at least. Felt like an accomplishment, till I got knocked back down. Figured maybe up wasn’t the way to go. Figured instead I’d stay low.
I protected my head as best I could with my bum arm. The tendons in my shoulder hurt like hell, holding it up like that, and the old bean still got clocked a couple times, but I deflected enough blows to stay conscious, so we’ll call that a win. Tried to snatch the torch with my good arm, but the steady rain of dust from above proved too much for it, extinguishing the flame.
That was OK. I’d seen darkness aplenty those past two days. I was starting to get used to it.
What was harder to get used to was the constant battery outside —like London in the fucking Blitz —and the deadly hail of rocks it set upon me.
A stone dagger shook loose from the ceiling and sliced along my side, through fabric and skin both. The wound burned white hot, the only light in the room —and I could see it even when my eyes were closed. Hurt enough it made me lower my shieldarm for a moment. Then a quick shot to my temple reminded me why that was a bad idea.
A crushing blow from nowhere set off fireworks in my kidney. Something inside me went all wet and loose. I’ll be pissing blood if I get out of here alive, I thought. The notion didn’t fill me with warm fuzzies.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking why didn’t I let nature take its course and say sayonara to this poor pathetic meat-suit? After all, just two days back I was rooting for the bug-monster to kill me, so why not? Why bother busting ass for the privilege of wandering smack into the middle of an angel/demon grudge match when I could take my chances with reseeding and hope I wind up possessing someone hale and hearty and way the fuck away from here? And believe me, I get where you’re coming from. But there’s a couple things I’m privy to that you’re not.
Thing One: dying fucking hurts.
Thing Two: dying really fucking hurts.
How bad does dying hurt? So bad that even if shit’s hitting the fan full-on and you’ve got no other choice, you still stop and check the math to make sure it don’t add up another way. And yeah, OK, I’ll cop to trying to goad the bug-monster into killing me, but there were extenuating circumstances —namely the fact that I was (mistakenly, as it turned out) pretty sure he was going to kill me anyway. So I wasn’t so much rooting for death as I was for him to make it quick. Big difference.
Besides, the key to a successful reseeding is luck, and lots of it. Luck’s the difference between winding up in a millionaire meat-suit with a private jet or an invalid in an adult diaper without enough spare juice to raise his head, let alone allow you to hop hosts.
Now do I strike you as the lucky type?
Yeah, that’s what I thought —which is why most times I’d just as soon take my chances in the here and now, regardless of the crappiness of said here and now.
Sick of getting pummeled, I crawled toward where I figured the door was, but ran into Danny’s cot instead. I started to turn around, and then I got me the beginnings of an idea, so I stopped. My fingers traced the cot’s metal frame until I found the hinge. Then I folded it in half and climbed under. It was a tight fit, me hunched inside my makeshift Aframe tent, but it was better than being crushed to death. It was, at best, a temporary solution; the way this place was filling up, I had to get through that crawlspace and into the outer chamber fast if I wanted to keep this meat-suit breathing.
I tried sliding the whole shebang forward, toward the door. Too damn many rocks in the way. I looped my hands around the frame and lifted, figuring I’d use it all umbrella-like and knee-walk over, but the uneven terrain required all fours to maneuver, which is to say I tipped over and wound up on my face.
I won’t lie —tipping over hurt. Hurt enough it took a sec to realize I wasn’t getting pummeled anymore. I could hear shit falling, sure —louder every second, in fact, suggesting this room wasn’t going to be a room much longer —but it was no longer reaching me. Seemed the cot had gotten wedged against the wall, building me a little fort. But by the creaking of its frame, it wasn’t going to stay wedged for long.