"Come down!" someone from the ground shouted. It was a cocktail waitress, her skirt all but chewed off of her hips. Most of the skin was missing from her right hand, revealing a skeletal hand with only two fingers. "Finish eating! I need to!"

Bill spared one more look to his army. The ones that survived, maybe twenty or so, all had their eyes turned to him.

And they stared.

And he thought of Constance's shade, the purest aspect of herself, sitting there in the room, staring out the window with no view.

Only one way to get her back: to win.

No matter what.

Bill felt the demon's joy as he again raised his hand.

His army raised with the gesture, soaring upward into the night.

He had no idea how high they went. The red and gold strands tugged at him but he let them play out. He knew he could let them spin out for another couple of thousand miles, or a million or a billion. The demon would let him. It would help him.

Because he could do pretty much whatever he wanted.

And what he wanted was Constancea*the real onea*back in his arms.

And to Hell with the cost.

Bill looked upward. He could barely see his army, who had turned into little more than black flecks against the bright night sky. One of them flailed her arms, pinwheeling them like a kid pretending to be a bird.

A bit of liquid hit Bill's face. He wondered idly if it was rain. Or blood. Or a tear.

"Whatever," he said.

"Wow," said Terris, through his wife's body. "Serious shit there."

"You have no idea," said Bill, and brought down his hand.

The red and gold tensed like the muscles of a weightlifter. The demon thrilled inside of him, cavorting with unholy joy. He felt its glee at seeing the scraped, mutilated, bloody, and pale faces of his army screaming toward the ground like missiles.

Then a rush of air as the bodies flew past him. He had no idea how fast they were goinga*it was as least as fast as someone could fall from the sky unaided.

His head followed their progress for the split second it took for them to collide with their opponents.

The noise was like a bomb.

Sawdust spewed up into the air. This time it was damp with blood.

"Oh shit!" shouted his wife's body.

He heard actual fear in her voice.

When the sawdust settled, Bill blinked a couple of times, getting the grit out of his eyes.

"Oh, shit," he heard his wife say again. "Looks like that was better than the tree idea." She laughed nervously.

The combatantsa"all of them, his and hersa"were gone.

All of them.

Bill recognized a body part here an there amidst the carnage. There was a purple Doc Marten boot, hurled to the border of the forest. There was someone's forehead, the eyebrows raised in surprise. And there was a ribcage, hollowed out, the guts strewn around it like festive garlands.

And the names.

Bill felt the names of the dead sinking out of his mind. It was as if they were written in the sand, and the tide had come in to lap up all of the letters off the beach.

Was that Kelly...what's her name...and Gina...and....

All of the names. He felt them washing away, receding to a part of his consciousness beyond his reach.

They were now dead.

The real dead. Not walking, no reanimated.

Motionless.

Gone.

Bill stared at the human offal. Another tree fell in the forest, this one a small birch. It fell with a small apologetic cracking, which barely registered in his mind.

All of them gone.

In one pile, he saw distinctly the face of...who was it? Gary something?...taring up at him. All of Gary's lower body had disintegrated with the impact, into a jelly that coated the sawdust. Gary's eyes rolled back into his head, and a shudder went through his remaining limbs. He raised one of his hands, and Bill saw a wedding ring shining in Constance's light.

"Shit," he said.

And he turned away.

Bill held up his left hand. There was the ring that Constance had insisted upon buying him. Gold, it was, and not some cheap electroplate. She'd wheedled money from her father until he allowed her to get the twenty-four karat band, from an expensive jewelry maker that Bill had never heard of. His wedding ring, brand new, shone in the light coming from his wife.

No.

Not his wife.

It was only her body.

It was Terris.

Bill urged himself back to his side of the forest. He touched down amongst the trees. The red and gold approved of his actions; it was tired, too, he sensed.

And everything was over.

Bill walked over to a pine tree. Most of the branches were missing, stripped off of the trunk by his wife or by him or by someone. He couldn't remember. Sap poured out of the holes to stain the trunk like blood running from open wounds.

Bill placed his hands on the tree. He tilted his head forward, tapping it onto the rough bark.

"I'm done," he said. "Done."

"No, you're not," said Terris.

He smelled her body behind him. She reeked of unwashed armpits, blood, and soil. A scent of something still lingereda*hot dogs? When had she eaten hot dogs?

He did not turn around as her light illuminated the tree in front of him. The light on the rough bark cast shadows like black horns.

"Wait," he said, closing his eyes. "You had hot dogs back in the cabin. All that time ago. And weren't there chips on the side? Constance hates hot dogs."

"You're not done," said his wife's voice.

"I am." Bill yawned. The red and gold still pulsed inside of him like a heart, but he knew that it was tired as well. It retreated back into his guts, sucking in on itself. He didn't know that demons could be tired. "Question."

She had crept up closer. He felt the heat from her skin on his back.

"What," she said.

"If I give up, do I still have to be the Devil?"

"Yes."

Bill turned around.

Terris still hadn't planted her feet on the ground, although they were close. Her pink sweatshirt was unzipped, the zipper broken somehow, and her white t-shirt underneath covered in filth. Behind her lay the field of the dead.

They stared at each other. Bill could not find any remnant of his wife anywhere behind the blank eyes.

Then Terris pulled his wife's precious cheeks into a smile. Her teeth shone a scummy green in the white light still emanating from her. He wanted to offer her a swish of Listerine.

She reached out her hand. For a moment, Bill didn't get the meaning of the gesture.

Her smile disappeared.

"Shake my hand," she said. "Congratulations."

Forty-Two.

Bill stared at her outstretched hand. It was completely clean, as if she'd scrubbed it in bleach.

He felt the red and gold curl up inside him, next to his stomach somewhere. He got the impression of it giving a satisfied yawn, as if it had done its job to perfection and would now be taking a nap.

He still stared.

Despite the satisfaction of his demon, Bill felt only fatigue. Like he'd run several miles and then been forced to swim three miles through a lake of blood. And had to clean up a midden-heap of dead bodies at the end.

He stared at his wife's hand, so white and so clean.

"Your ring," he said.

"Excuse me?"

"Your ring."

"Bill..."

She held out her hand, giving it a shake as if to cue him to the right action.

But Bill just stared.

Once it had been Constance's hand. He had held it, in romance and in encouragement. He had seen it cut vegetables, write love letters, and wave about in the air as she acted in her stupid plays. He had stared at the fingersa*long in proportion to her palm but still tinya*as she slept. Sometimes he thought he was more interested in her hands than in her face.

But now.

Now this hand had done unimaginable evil. The hand had slaughtered more people than most serial killers. It had wielded a knife that had once been made out of something she loved. And she had used the hand to control the armies of the dead. The revenants, zombies, walking corpsesa*whatever the hell they wanted to be called. He'd seen enough of this. Really.

He looked out over her shoulder.

"You have to shake my hand," she said.

The light from her body had dimmed considerably; now it was more like a dozen candles burning than a spotlight. He could see the fallen trees, some of them lying on top of each other, as if an insane lumberjack had come through with a massive chainsaw. The smallest one was the size of a Christmas tree. Someone's head topped one of the branches, its mouth open, like the head of an angel ornament, singing praises to the Lord.

"We never had a Christmas together," Bill said.

"What?"

Bill felt her eyes on him. He didn't meet them. He didn't think he ever could again.

"We didn't open presents. We didn't drink egg nog or any shit like that. Nothing."

"You won. I concede. Shake my hand."

"Why?"

Bill's eyes drifted away from the carnage. He wondered if there were any left alive in there, lying facedown in the sawdust, scrabbling with their broken nails. How many of them were still conscious? Were they just playing dead?

Terris seemed to read his thoughts.

"They're all dead, really really dead," he said through his wife's mouth. "Not getting back up again. Finished."

Bill thought of his wife in her room. And of Septimus in his room. And even himself in his room, where he'd received the book that had turned into the red and gold. The river of blood running through Hell's corridors, going off to God knew where. Mr. Logic, the Devil himself, haunting the corridors.