"That's what you say. And it sounds to me like it's a pretty even deck. You haven't even told me exactly why Lucifer wants me. Why's he want my power? What's he going to do with it?"

"Something diabolical, something monstrous. Beyond that, we don't know. That's why I was sent here. I'm going to escort you back to h.e.l.l to find out."

"That's great, that tells me a lot." Ca.s.sie felt steeped in sarcasm now. "I should be jumping up and down to go on this trip, huh?"

Angelese just smiled. "You'll see."

Ca.s.sic's eyes shot to the blot of shadow at the angel's feet. "And how come that thing's not doing a number on you? I thought any time you broke the Rules, any time you told me something secret, you'd get punished."

"I can't be re-tortured for elaborating on information I've already revealed. I've got plenty more to tell you, and when I do"-her eyes flicked down on the shadow-"that thing's gonna rake me over the coals."

"Then don't!" Ca.s.sie exclaimed. "Don't do it. Don't tell me anything and you won't be hurt."

The angel's voice went coa.r.s.e. "I exist to be hurt. I am G.o.d's unworthy servant forever."

"I don't want to watch you get torn up by that thing again!" Ca.s.sie insisted.

"Whoever said life has anything to do with what we want or don't want? Life's a gift, Ca.s.sie. Sometimes we have to give something back. You will see me tortured again before our plight is finished." Angelese didn't seem the least bit daunted by the prospect. She casually crossed her legs, diddling with the pendant around her neck, the strange gem she'd called an Obscurity Stone.

"Why can't G.o.d just know?" Ca.s.sie countered next. "He's omnipotent, right? He's all-knowing. Why can't He just know what Lucifer's planning and then stop it?"

"It's doesn't work that way. The same reason he doesn't just put His hand down and stop wars, stop disease, stop poverty. And all that. He gave humans the world as their own. It's up to them, it's up to their free will. Yours too, Ca.s.sie."

Ca.s.sie slowly paced the room. She didn't like guilt trips, and usually they didn't work on her anyway. But now she didn't know how she should feel. Was she being selfish? It was easier to cop out, to change the subject. "I don't understand about this Merge thing, this Atrocidome. How's it work?"

"Like I said, it's an immense coliseum. They put a million inhabitants out on the field at once. They can't escape 'cos they close all the gates. Hovering over the 'dome is an iron plate that weighs hundreds of thousands of tons. It's able to hover because a regiment of specially trained Biowizards put a Levitation Spell on it. More incantations and spells are needed, too, of course, to direct the Merge, but when everything's ready, Biowizards terminate the Levitation Spell and the giant iron plate falls, squashes everybody in the 'dome field at the same time. Like dropping a cinderblock on an ant hill, only here the ants are living inhabitants of h.e.l.l. They'll use anyone they can round up, Trolls, Broodren, Imps, any cla.s.s of demon, but it's mostly d.a.m.ned humans 'cos they have souls. More juice. You know all about how that works-when the Spirit Body of a d.a.m.ned human is destroyed, the soul descends into a lower life form, but there's a lot of necrotic energy that's released during that transfer. All those lives ending at once creates a ma.s.sive energy flux, and then Lucifer's engineers tap that energy. It's the power that's used for the Merge. It allows a district of the Mephistopolis to exist in the same s.p.a.ce with a chunk of the Living World, and it just goes to show you what lengths Satan will go to to get what he wants. Kill all those people just for a magic trick, just to keep offending G.o.d."

Ca.s.sie tried to picture the macabre event in her mind, but really couldn't; even with all the impossibilities she'd previously seen in the Mephistopolis, she couldn't quite fathom such a spectacle. But her biggest question-Why? What did Lucifer plan to do if he was able to kidnap Ca.s.sie?-was beyond even Angelese. Without thinking, Ca.s.sie asked: "When is the next Spatial Merge going to occur? Do you know?"

The Umbra-Specter instantly elongated on the floor, its black arms and claws gleefully outspread. d.a.m.n, I forgot about that thing! Ca.s.sie's mind raced. "Forget it, don't tell me!"

But Angelese just sighed, a strangely casual resignation.

A voice, like the etchings of two insect appendages abrading, seemed to say, "Please, please! Tell her! Let me tear your pretty body up..."

"We know," Angelese began, "that it's going to happen within the next few days," and then the shadow's claws lengthened and reached forward, slowly sliding up the angel's white legs but leaving luminous-red thread-thin slashes. The thing moaned in some demented ecstasy. Angelese just shuddered, braving the pain.

"-yes, within the next few days, and when that happens I'll be ready to get you out of here and show you to the other Deadpa.s.s, there aren't many Deadpa.s.ses beyond the nearest Migration Point in this area but I know where one is"-she flashed a triumphant grin through the rising agony-" I know because the Archangel Gabriel told me!" and now she screamed, shuddering on the bed. The Umbra-Specter's vitality and physical form grew nourished by what was being said. Its ink black configuration slid forward and up to embrace Angelese and haul her linen gown up over her hips, the ebon awl-sharp points of its claws rending slow, delicious grooves up and down the inside of her thighs. Blood poured freely as water from a faucet.

Ca.s.sie sat down in the corner, in tears, pleading, "Stop stop stop!"

Angelese was panting, though, laughing as she defied the Specter's meticulous torment. "There's something else, too, Lucifer's backup plan-"

"DON'T TELL ME!" Ca.s.sie shrieked.

"Lucifer knows that he might fail in abducting you, so he'd need another Etheress but there isn't one. You're the only one in history-"

Now the shadow's black hands were up Angelese's chest, racking line after b.l.o.o.d.y line across her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The talons began to dig just under the sternum, clawing a hole until the claw disappeared. The Specter whispered, "Sweet little angelic b.i.t.c.h, let me play with your immortal heart, let me tickle it with cuts-"

"But there's something else coming too," the angel gasped out, "It's called an Etherean-"

"What's that?" Ca.s.sie cried.

"The male version of you-" and that was all Angelese could stand as the shadow's claw hand molested her beating heart. The scream exploded from her throat and she collapsed flat on her back on the floor, liquid red light spraying from her wounds. The Umbra-Specter chuckled like someone who'd just had a greedy o.r.g.a.s.m, and its form retreated back into the shadow which outlined Angelese's very still body.

Ca.s.sie's mind was swimming, her cheeks wet and teeth chattering from the spectacle of atrocity. Bright red blood glowed all over the walls and formed a shallow pool on the floor.

The words replayed in her mind like a whisper in a dream: Etherean, Etherean ... The mak version of you ...

Ca.s.sie fainted dead away.

Part II.

Suicide.

Chapter Eight.

(I).

"Straight 4.0 student with a 170 I.Q. He's never taken a test in his life that he hasn't aced. Eighteen years old and he's already in grad school, but, look. Look how dumb he really is. How can somebody so smart be this stupid?"

Each word seemed like the bite of a shovel digging down into Walter's grave and grudgingly unearthing him. But Walter didn't want to be unearthed, did he? What was happening?

He'd just blown his head off with a Remington 870 that had a 12-gauge deer-slug in the chamber.

"What an a.s.shole. What a s.h.i.t-for-brains blithering moron."

The person berating him was his twin brother Colin who sat next to Walter's bed, reading MAD magazine. Colin's kinky tumble of fire-orange hair-identical to Walter's- glowed around the shape of his head from the lamp beside his chair.

Where am I? Walter thought.

"You're in the hospital, Brain-child, in case you haven't figured it out," Colin told him. "And, no, you didn't die. Jesus Christ in a hot-dog stand, Walter. Where'd you get that shotgun?"

"What difference does it make?" Walter finally spoke through a throat drier than beach sand. He'd failed. He'd survived his own suicide-the ultimate humiliation. But how could that be? He leaned up in the raised, side-railed hospital bed, on his elbows, cringing at a twinge of headache, and looked at Colin. "How could I possibly survive the impact of a 12-gauge pumpkin-ball to the head? The cranial trauma would've been absolute. The man at the gun store said there'd be no head left on my shoulders."

"Walter, you are a prime a.s.s," Colin replied. "I was at the dorm when the ambulance came. You should've seen yourself, you looked ridiculous."

"What?"

"You looked like Moe in the episode about the organ grinder's monkey. You didn't shoot yourself in the head, Walter. You weren't holding the shotgun right, it must've slipped up when you pulled the trigger. The pumpkin-ball just grazed the top of your head, d.i.c.kbrain. All you did with that pumpkin-ball was part your hair."

Walter felt the top of his head. He had a hat of bandages. Then he fell back in the bed, almost in tears. I can't do anything right...

"You should've called me," Colin continued to berate. He got up, went across the room, and was turning a wheelchair around the side of the bed. "I had no idea you were suicidal. It's my fault. You almost f.u.c.ked everything up."

Walter didn't get the meaning of Colin's last statement, not that he was paying much attention. He'd tried to kill himself because of Candice, and look what happened.

"Come on, Buddy-bro. It's time for Walter to leave the building."

Walter looked at the wheelchair, duped. "I can't leave yet, can I? Will the doctors let me leave this soon?"

"Sure." The strangest smile. "I've already talked to the doctor. I checked you out."

This didn't sound right, but who was Walter to argue? It just seemed odd that they'd let him out without even a final checkout. He'd just attempted suicide. Wouldn't they want him to see a counselor or something?

"Get your a.s.s in the chair. The limo's waiting. You'll probably have one motherf.u.c.ker of a headache for the next few days so ..." Colin gave him a pill and cup of water. "Take one of these."

Walter didn't argue. His head did ache, which was understandable. After he swallowed the pill, he clumsily let Colin help him into the chair.

He felt woozy at once, light-headed. Suddenly he just wanted to sleep. As Colin wheeled him out into the hospital's main corridor, Walter groggily said, "Hey, Colin? Are you sure the doctor said it was all right for me to leave the hospital this early?"

"Sure, Buddy-bro. It's all taken care of."

"But ... aren't there release forms to sign, and health-care forms?"

A pat on the shoulder. "All taken care of. You just relax and let me get you out of here. We have a lot to talk about."

"Mmmm," Walter said. That painkiller was making him nod out. "What ... what do we have to talk about, Colin?"

"Your destiny," Colin said back.

The words shocked Walter's eyes open but only for a moment. The drug was dragging him down into a sweet lulling unconsciousness. He was almost asleep again before he could see anything of consequence in the hall but when the evidence snagged his vision, he saw that it was a considerable consequence, indeed.

Splotches of red shined on the clean white walls. Walter let his head roll to one side, and on the floor ...

I must be hallucinating, he thought. From the painkillers. Still, what he was seeing as his brother dutifully pushed the wheelchair down the hall was ...

Lots of dead people?

Everyone on this wing of the hospital was dead ... or at least that's what Walter, in his dimming vision, was seeing. Everyone. Every doctor, nurse, patient. Every janitor and every security guard. Everyone in the waiting room, too, lay sidled over, dead.

There was blood everywhere, as if the walls had been deliberately painted with it, and also the floor-it shined beneath a fresh wet sh.e.l.lac of crimson.

"I'm hallucinating, Colin." Walter even chuckled at the impossible imagery. "The painkiller's really whacking me out."

The wheelchair rolled steadily onward. It was soothing, comforting. "What do you see, Buddy-bro?"

"It looks like everyone here is dead."

"It doesn't look like it, Walter. It is. Everyone here is dead."

Walter's lips b.u.mbled as his wobbly faculties tried to cogitate the information. "But that-that-that's not possible ... Is it?"

"Sure is. I didn't want to f.u.c.k around, you know? I need to get you out of here without any ha.s.sles. Easiest way was to just kill everyone here."

More b.u.mbling. "Huh-huh-how did you-"

"I did it by burning a thurible full of baby's blood while reading an incantation from the forbidden book called the Fourth Testament of Albigerius. He was a Carthaginian sorcerer who could have out-of-body experiences in h.e.l.l and bargain with the Devil to give him secrets and spells. I recited one of his unholy rites. It's called an Exsanguination Spell, Walter. It made everybody's blood come out of their bodies at the same time."

Walter chuckled at the ludicrousness, though the chuckle lost some of its tenor when the automatic doors to the front lobby opened and Walter saw a lot more blood and a lot more dead people.

"Oh, no, this can't possibly be real." Walter felt sure, eyeballing the gore. The atrocity was, somehow, stunning. It looked as though the walls had been washed down with a fire hose, only the fire hose expelled blood instead of water.

Two more automatic doors slid open. Walter was rolled out into a warm, starry night which felt utterly serene, yet his confusion kept snapping his sleepy eyelids back open. The lights around the hospital glittered; everything seemed perfectly still and quiet. Down the front entrance walk to the circular court where patients were dropped off. One of Colin's long black brand-new limos sat waiting. He'd bought a bunch of fancy cars since hitting the state lottery but lately he seemed to prefer being driven around in this. The driver's door popped open and out stepped the driver: a tall dark-haired woman with voluptuous curves. She wore knee-high black boots, black-leather slacks, black vest over a white long-sleeve satin shirt, and a cute little black driver's cap. Colin liked flamboyance. The woman said nothing as the wheelchair approached. She smiled slyly, dark eyes like cut gems.

"Walter, meet Augustina. She doesn't say much, she just looks good and drives my a.s.s around. Pretty hot stuff, huh?"

Walter groggily nodded. In all that had happened, though, he really wasn't concentrating on the girl.

"Her name isn't really Augustina. I named her that when she came over."

"Came over?" Walter managed.

"I thought it would be kind of nifty to name her after the saint who cut his c.o.c.k off because he thought s.e.x was a perpetration of evil."

Walter drifted further away. The words sounded like echoes in his head now. When Augustina opened the back limo door, an automatic lift lowered out. Her vested bosom bloomed before his face when she leaned over and eased the wheelchair onto the lift. In another second, Walter was being drawn into the car.

A few more moments of perplexion. Walter could barely talk anymore. "This-this-this doesn't feel right, Colin. What-what-what's happening?"

The door gently thunked closed. The car's motor could barely be heard when they drove off into the night.

"Cool stuff, Buddy-bro. That's what's happening. All kinds of cool stuff. And you're part of it. In fact, you're the key player."

Walter could make nothing of what his brother had said. Something else kept bothering him and it was hard to focus on what it was, but eventually he snagged it as his mind and senses faded further from the drugs.

"Colin? Did you say something earlier? Did you say we have a lot to talk about?"

A cork popped. Colin had just opened a bottle of Kluge champagne. "Uh-hmm," was his response to the question. He took a sip of the champagne, then spat it out the window. "What is the big deal with champagne? Tastes like rotten club soda-Jesus!" Aggravated, he lobbed the bottle out of the car.

There's somethng else, there's something else... Walter remembered the man who'd been killed by the drunk driver, and he remembered what he'd seen and heard in the snack bar rest room last night.

"Did you say something about destiny?"

"Your destiny awaits, Buddy-bro." Outside, the stars swam by in the window. "It's time for you to embrace your destiny..."

(II).

Colin owned the entire top floor of the Strauss Building in downtown St. Petersburg, overlooking Tampa Bay. That's what Walter's eyes opened to when he began to regain consciousness-the low moon glowing over the bay. A gentle breeze off the water revived him. He winced; his head ached.

It took several moments to re-sort all that had happened. He wasn't sure what was real and what was imagined. He was still in the wheelchair-someone had put him out here on the balcony to look at the bay-but when he tried to stand up, he couldn't, still too shaky from the painkillers.