Ca.s.sie looked but still couldn't move. Angelese's face glowed in streaks from a grievous wound. Four deep slash-marks. But she smiled calmly, then knelt before R.J. who shuddered on the floor. "No, her jive doesn't work on you, but mine does. So you like to dismember people?" She grabbed R.J.'s upper arm, and her hand burned through the flesh and bone. The arm fell off, cauterized. His screams shook the building's foundation as she did the same to his other arm, and then his legs. The flesh continued to sizzle as smoke rose.

"There," Angelese said very quietly.

The head on R.J.'s torso looked at her, beseeching. "We're going to win. You know that, don't you?"

"Not you, brother. You lose."

"Just kill me. Burn out my heart."

"That's too easy. That's too merciful, and not all angels are merciful. No, I won't kill you. I'll send you back to your p.i.s.s-ant master-a total failure. What will he do to you, your Son of the Morning? What will he do to you for letting him down?" and with that, Angelese picked up the Fallen Angel's living torso- "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

-and heaved it into the Nectoport.

" 'Bye," Angelese said.

The Nectoport's maw snapped shut, then it disappeared.

Angelese sighed, sat up on the desk. "Are you all right?" she asked Ca.s.sie.

"I'm friggin' paralyzed!"

"Oh, what'd he do, lay a Paresis Spell on you? It'll wear off in a minute now that he's gone."

Actually, Ca.s.sie could feel the effects dulling already. She leaned up on the counter as much as she could. "Thanks ... What was that all about? Your touch burns?"

"I'm blessed, he isn't. I can kill any lower-grade Fallen Angel just by placing my hands on him."

Nifty, Ca.s.sie thought. And her good fortune. Then she peered around, alarmed. "I'm all right, but you definitely aren't. What happened to your face? And how did you get out of that Warding Hex?"

"I told a big secret, so my Umbra-Specter came alive and slashed my face. It also slashed the Warding lines in the process."

Ca.s.sie gaped at the straight gouge-like wounds. "It must've hurt like ..."

"Like a motherf.u.c.ker," the angel said.

Ca.s.sie winced. Her paralysis continued to lift, and she noticed that the strange charge in the air was weakening.

"The Merge'll be over in another few minutes," Angelese informed.

But Ca.s.sie was astonished at what she was seeing now: the angel had reached into the desk and removed a cigarette. She was lighting it.

"Angels smoke?" she asked.

"I've had a tough day, and so have you. Let's get out of here."

She helped Ca.s.sie to her feet, then led her out of the Merged exam room. Yes, the charge in the air was definitely losing its vitality, but they were still in a meld of h.e.l.ls.p.a.ce. We're not out of the woods yet, Ca.s.sie realized. In this wing of the clinic, there was an exit door at the end, but when they turned the corner- "Oh, gimme a break," Angelese muttered.

At the end of the hall stood a black-garbed Grand Duke, oxen-headed, eight feet tall, overly muscled shoulders spanning a meter at least. Its eyes smoldered, and the horns jutting from its rippled forehead were longer and sharper than those of a mature bull.

Behind the monster stood a platoon of slavering Ushers, some armed with b.l.o.o.d.y halberds, some with broadswords, some with spiked cudgels, yet all with newly honed talons, mouths full of teeth like long shards of gla.s.s.

The voice resonated. "Etheress. I am Grand Duke Lescoriere of the First Infernal Brigade. I am charged with the duty of escorting you to the Mephis...o...b..ilding. The property owner would be honored to receive you as his welcome guest. He has much to discuss with you, and much to share. He has blessings of wonder to bestow-good things, all. And on my immortal soul, I guarantee your safety."

"Sit on your horns, d.i.c.khead," Angelese said "If you come of your own accord-you, Etheress, and your confidante-you will be rewarded beyond all imagination."

Ca.s.sie grinned. "I'll go with you on one condition."

"Speak it, Etheress, and it will be done."

"Cut your head off," Ca.s.sie said.

The Grand Duke, unblinking, took a broadsword from one of the Ushers, held it straight out by the haft, and flicked his corded wrist. The blade blurred backward and popped the Grand Duke's head off his shoulders like a disconnected jack-in-the-box.

"You gotta be s.h.i.tting me," Angelese whispered.

Ca.s.sie's jaw dropped. Man, these guys are HARDCORE. The Grand Duke's monstrous body remained standing, fully poised. An Usher picked up the head and held it out by the horns.

"I've done as you have bid, Etheress," said the Grand Duke's head.

"I hate to tell you this," Ca.s.sie said, "but I was just kidding."

"As I've said, your humble host awaits you, and someone else too, someone who loves you and yearns to see you-"

"Yeah, I know, my sister. But I don't believe what devils say. I'm not that stupid, so why don't you do us all a favor? Why don't you and your goon squad hit the road?"

"Come with us of your own free will, or we will take you," the Grand Duke said, and behind him, several of his beasts were unfolding a barbed net.

"You can't take doodly-squat," Ca.s.sie began, and then she shouted, "because you're all BONELESS!"

The Grand Duke's head went limp as a rubber sack, dangling. His erect body collapsed on itself, then every Usher in the hall seemed to deflate as all their bones disappeared from within their flesh. In the time it had taken Ca.s.sie to merely say the word, the Grand Duke and his platoon were transformed into a quivering ma.s.s of flesh.

"That's so cool!" Angelese exclaimed.

But Ca.s.sie began to go weak-kneed. "G.o.d, I can barely move, I'm so tired all of a sudden."

"Every time you use your powers, you drain your physical vitality, and you've used a lot today. But we've still got to get out of here. The Merge is wearing off, but I don't know for sure how long it'll take to end completely."

Yes, Ca.s.sie thought, light-headed and squinting ahead. Let's just leave. She looked at the cinderblock hallway, and thought: Fall down ...

The corridor toppled like something made of a child's blocks suddenly swept by an irate hand. Air gusted in their faces, dust billowed outward in waves, and where the walls had been was now just open night. The perimeter of the confines of the Merge dwindled before their eyes, h.e.l.lish structures, streets, and features dissipating. Ca.s.sie had collapsed in psychic exhaustion. Angelese put her over her shoulder and began to run.

Part III.

Fall.

Chapter Eleven.

(I).

Walter felt woozy, tunnel-visioned, as though he'd just stepped off a particularly vigorous roller coaster. I'm in a city, came the clipped thought. He tried to blink away some vertigo. Just a big city, a run-down district, like southeast D.C. or maybe Detroit. These thoughts were reactive, against the extreme disorientation. It would occur to him in a few moments, though, that neither southeast D.C. nor Detroit possessed a perpetual twilight of dark scarlet. The moon that overlooked D.C. and Detroit was not black, nor were the stars jaundice-yellow.

Walter staggered down the stinking alley. His head hurt, and with each throb of pain another dollop of memory returned. He put his hand to his head, felt the wrap of bandages, then remembered still more.

He'd tried to kill himself, but he'd failed. Colin, instead, had been the one to successfully complete the act.

He chuckled. So ... I'm an Etherean. Either that or this is a really bad dream.

A cone of light from a leaning streetlamp bathed the end of the alley. There stood a pile of rubbish, as might be found in any city: an old metal barrel stuffed with junk. Amid empty cans and splintered furniture legs sat an oblong mirror webbed with cracks. Walter stared down at his image, watched himself unwrap the bandage from his head. His shoulders slumped at the geek reflection and the ludicrous wound. A shaved line of st.i.tches parted his hair right down the middle. Colin was right, I DO look like Moe in the episode about the organ grinder's monkey ... What difference did it make, though? If this wasn't a dream, then he was in h.e.l.l now, a h.e.l.l that had evolved over thousands of years into this endless metropolis full of skysc.r.a.pers. And he was unique in this place. In the Living World he'd been a n.o.body.

Here, he'd been informed, he had great power.

But where was the evidence of such power? He hadn't transformed. He didn't radiate blazing light from his eyes. He was the same Walter, just standing in a different place.

A different world, he reminded himself.

Back at Colin's penthouse, he'd read all of the pages that had been transcribed by the prost.i.tutes, and if there was one thing about Walter it was that his genius I.Q. accommodated quite a capacity for reading as well as data retention. He'd read the entirety of the Evocations of Lucifuge, the first book to ever be published in h.e.l.l. He'd scrutinized the crucial chapters: "The Unsacred Edicts of h.e.l.ls.p.a.ce," and "Etheresses and Ethereans."

He knew everything now. He knew all the Rules.

But there was no description whatsoever of the actual powers of an Etherean. How did they manifest themselves? If he was so powerful-the first Etherean in all of history-why wasn't anyone here to greet him? He expected to be carried off on a throne. Why weren't the minions of the underworld bowing at his feet?

Graffiti loomed on the urine-streaked alley wall: I WANNA f.u.c.k s.h.i.t UP! and h.e.l.l SUCKS. In the darkness, barely seen shapes that could only be rats chittered by, and drug vials cracked under his sneakers. Walter shook his head. "Maybe this is Detroit," he muttered. "I guess Lucifer's not into urban renewal." Then Walter peered at more graffiti-FREE MEATb.a.l.l.s AND b.l.o.o.d.y FACES!-and shook his head again. A final scrawl stared back at him: CANDICE LOVES WALTER.

Morose, he walked off.

The city's true nature began to reveal itself. Out of the alley, he could indeed see the sky, like dark blood, and the black sickle moon that looked several times larger than the moon that orbited the Living World. Fires crackled beneath sewer grates, and strange faces clearly not human peered at him from dim windows. But Walter wasn't afraid. Why should he be?

I'm an Etherean.

The details of getting here began to resurface. That place in south St. Pete, The Mound, it was called, some local landmark. The prost.i.tute at Colin's had given Walter the slip of paper with directions.

It was a Deadpa.s.s, and now that he'd read the transcriptions, he knew what that meant. He'd merely walked across The Mound. Everything went black for a moment, and he felt a queer pressure pushing, but after only a few steps, he was here.

Walking through the Deadpa.s.s had brought him from one world to another, and here he was. In the city. In the Mephistopolis.

In his pants pocket he kept the polished onyx stone, one of his dead brother's final instructions. It would debilitate his visible life force. He felt it growing warm in his beige Dockers, and though he didn't quite understand, he thought it best to do as he was told. He was here for a reason: to see Candice. He couldn't have her in the Living World, but as an Etherean he would have her here. They would spend eternity with each other, in love.

CANDICE LOVES WALTER ...

Poor Walter ...

Bizarre street signs wavered overhead: CRANIOPAGI AVENUE, HEMIHYPERTROBE ROAD, CHAN-CROID BLVD. What? No Primrose Lane? Out on the sidewalk now, the sulphurish streetlamps tinted the asphalt like yellow frost. He was pa.s.sing another alley when he heard the faint but definite sound ...

clip clip clip clip Walter stopped, peeked into the alley.

Some sort of humanoid mongrel, with horns surrounding his head like a crown, and a face stretched out round and tight as a black balloon, stood in the alley with his rotten trousers down. He was snipping warts off his elephantine p.e.n.i.s with a pair of toenail clippers.

"Get out of here!" the thing grumbled. "Can't you see I'm busy!"

Walter got out of there and fast. Around the next corner he stumbled onto a street that seemed to be paved in cobblestones. At first it looked pretty, but when he examined the stones more closely he noticed that they were clear, like transparent bricks, each containing a demonic fetus. Up ahead, a Lycanymph leaned against a mailbox. The drop-door on the mailbox wouldn't close due to overfilling with body parts. But Walter had read about the Lycanymphs: sultry tramp werewolves that prost.i.tuted themselves. She was picking her vulpine nose, pulling out worms.

Man, this place is A LOT grosser than Detroit! Walter thought, aghast.

The streets seemed strangely devoid of activity, though. "Where is everybody?" he mumbled to himself. A city in h.e.l.l? It should be sprawling with d.a.m.ned souls and demons.

"Mutilation Squad came through a few hours ago," the pretty werewolf told him. Now she was extracting a worm at least a foot long from her nostril. "They hit us twice this week. That's never happened before."

Walter averted his eyes from her current activities when he asked, "What's a Mutilation Squad?"

"Usually a regiment of Ushers and Conscripts. They come in by surprise in Nectoports, kill everything on the street. Funny this time, though."

"Whuh-what?"

"The last two times they didn't kill anyone, just carried them all off in nets. Mancer Squads have been doing it too, and the Constabularies. Rumor is they're taking everyone in alive to use them in the Atrocidome. Some new hocus-pocus going on's what I heard from a trick a couple days ago. And it really p.i.s.ses me off 'cos it's wiping out my business. I lost some of my best johns in their last grab." She winked at him with a long-lashed agate-like eye. "You wanna date, cutie?"

"Uh-uh, no thank you," Walter stammered. "I don't have any money."

She hissed, showing yellowed fangs. "Then get off my street, you useless dork!"

Walter didn't care for the comment. "You shouldn't talk to me like that," he suggested. "If I weren't a nice guy, I'd use my powers on you."

"Powers? What powers?"

"I'm an Etherean," he told her.

The Lycanymph's eight pert fur-covered b.r.e.a.s.t.s jiggled as she laughed. "There's no such thing as an Etherean, a.s.shole. It's a fable. It's like Santa Claus. And even if the Etherean legend is true, it could never be you."

"Why not?" Walter challenged.

"You're a dweeb, not a hero."

Walter rushed away, crushed. What she'd said couldn't be true, though, could it? He knew that he was alive, yet in h.e.l.l. Only Ethereans could do that. It was the only way a member of the Living World could enter this place.

He turned the next corner- "Man-Burgers?" a Troll asked. He stood b.l.o.o.d.y-ap.r.o.ned and stout at his wheeled vending stand. His face could've been meatloaf. He skillfully spun a spatula over pallid meat patties cooking on the grill. "Or how about some of these?" he pitched, pointing to three sizzling things that looked like white bratwursts.

"What are those?" Walter inquired. "Sausages?"

"It's ghalestro pajata, grilled baby ghoul intestines, still filled with the mother's milk. It's great, tastes like salty pudding."

Walter's stomach clenched.