He drums his fingers on the table a couple of times.
“If the machine exists it wouldn’t work on me for the same reason it wouldn’t work on you. We wouldn’t let it. Do you really think these Keystone Cops have anything that could hurt people like us? You ruled the Underworld. I escaped Tartarus. Their magic can’t touch ours.”
“You didn’t escape Tartarus. Someone broke you out. Merihim and Deumos or some of their people.”
“They cracked open the door but I’m the one who did the heavy lifting, like when you first made it out of Hell.”
“So this is how we figure out the fate of the universe? Poker?”
“Of course not. That was nothing. That wasn’t even the appetizer before dinner. It was just to see if I should invite you for a full meal.”
“Should you?”
“Do you want to know how the Qomrama works?”
“The Shonin will figure it out.”
“Not in time.”
“How do I know you know anything?”
Mason closes his eyes. A minute later I hear the door to the cell open and the Shonin comes in.
“What did you do?” he says.
Mason laughs when he sees the Shonin.
“This is mankind’s savior? You’re like third prize at a backwoods Halloween fair.”
The Shonin says, “What did you do?”
“I proved I know how the Qomrama works.”
The Shonin starts to say something, but I hold up my hand and he quiets down.
I say, “What did he do?”
“The Qomrama opened the magnetic chamber and left it,” the Shonin says. “It’s floating in the center of the room, a ball of fire and ice. Boiling the room one minute and freezing it the next.”
I look at Mason’s beaming face. “Why should I believe you’ll teach us anything?”
“You have my word,” says Mason. “Every time you win a game I’ll tell you something about the Qomrama. I want you to learn it. I want to see you use it. And I want to see you fail so that in the end, you’ll know that I was always the better magician.”
“If I said I’d play, how would it work?”
“Simple. I call the games and we play. Every time you win, I tell you a secret.”
“And when you win?”
“I get to hurt you.”
“What does that mean?”
“Anything I want.”
“This is just between you and me. You can’t hurt anybody else.”
“I can do anything I like.”
“Don’t take the bait,” says Julie. “He’s crazy and he’ll never tell you the truth.”
“She’s right. I’ll continue my work,” says the Shonin.
Mason looks at him.
“Do you know the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans?”
“I know many spiritual books.”
“Chapter four, verse seven. Recite it.”
The Shonin thinks for a minute.
“ ‘Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven: and whose sins are covered.’ ”
“Very good. Now, recite that backward in Hellion and you can make the Qomrama do the little trick I did a moment ago. You can also use it to return it to its original resting spot.”
“That can’t be all,” says the Shonin. “A spell of that power would require meditation on a sacred object. A mandala or angelic sigil.”
Mason holds up his hands from the table. Using the sharp edge on one of his cuffs, he’s cut an inverted cross in a hex circle into his right palm.
I put my hand in my pocket around the Colt. Then let go and take my hand out. I turn to Julie.
“You have two hours to find Candy or I’m killing this guy, 8 Ball or no 8 Ball.”
She checks her phone.
“I have a message. I’ll see how the search is going.”
She leaves and the Shonin goes to Mason’s side of the table.
“You’re been a very bad boy from what I hear.”
Mason gives him a bland, condescending smile.
“I know that in your quaint foreign land what you did to yourself is considered a holy act, but here it would get you 5150’d. You’re going to have to forgive me if I’m unimpressed with the elaborate way you chose to sublimate your masochistic tendencies.”
The Shonin wags a finger at Mason.
“We had boys like you at the monastery. Big power. Little brains.”
“You didn’t have anyone like me. Tell him, Jimmy.”
I don’t say anything.
Mason’s scarred face clouds over.
“Tell him.”
I look at the Shonin.
“I doubt you ever had anyone like him.”
“Or him,” says Mason, pointing to me.
The Shonin throws up his hands.
“Fatty and Big Balls, a mutual admiration society. I’m going back to work.”
As the Shonin heads for the door, Mason calls after him.
“Be careful with the Qomrama. If you get the recitation wrong she has a nasty bite.”
The Shonin goes out, and before the door closes, Julie comes back in.
“We found her,” she says.
I get up.
“Where is she?”
Julie puts up her hands.
“Wait. You need to know something. She’s under arrest.”
“For what?”
“She attacked a homeless man and almost killed him. They’re both lucky we have a serum that reverses the effects of Jade venom. The man will live.”
“I want to see her.”
“She’s being processed. You can see her when she’s done.”
“No. Now.”
Julie gets right in my face.
“Shut up and listen to me. I just did you a favor. Washington has classified Saint Nick’s revived bodies as Lurkers, and under a new statute, any dangerous Lurker can be killed or detained indefinitely. My team had every legal right to kill a Jade attacking a civilian, but I gave them orders to bring her in. So you can fucking back off and wait until things cool down. And stop barking orders at me.”
Julie turns and goes out, slamming the door behind her.
I want to follow her and make her take me to Candy, but if what she said about the new law is true? Then she really did do me and Candy a favor, and there aren’t many people who would do that.
“You sure like the feisty ones, don’t you,” says Mason. “How’s Alice these days? Heard from her recently? I hear that things aren’t going too well in Heaven. I hope she’s all right.”
I knock on the door to be let out and head straight for an exit. Out in the parking lot I put my fist through the window on the side of a Vigil van.
Ow.
I forgot they use bulletproof glass. When I pull my hand back, I’ve peeled all the skin off my knuckles. I lean against the van, pull out a Malediction, and light it up. Out in the gloom across the drowning grass, a couple of Vigil cops play golf under a big umbrella.
I WAIT TWO goddamn hours, fidgeting and burning through the rest of the Maledictions. Outside, even the other smokers don’t want to be around me and the tire-fire smell. My bloody knuckles don’t help any chance of meaningful social interaction. I’m tempted to spook these dainty fucks by lighting my last smoke off the Gladius, but I’m in too foul a mood for that kind of fun.
I check the time on my phone. It’s close to what should be dawn. A gust of wind blows rain all over us, sending the Vigil agents back inside. Most of the good boys and girls are off to bed, leaving just a skeleton crew. If I need to go Wild Bunch on them, this would be a good time. But for now, I’ll wait and play by the rules like a good dog.
Around seven A.M., Julie comes outside.
“You can see her now,” she says, and heads back into the clubhouse. I follow her down to the Alcatraz end of the place, passing Mason’s cell on the way. I know he can’t see me, but I have the feeling the fucker is watching me somehow. I need to find out more about how he got out of Tartarus. What’s going on Downtown. And who I should snuff first, Merihim or Deumos.
Julie lets me into a small cellblock that holds a series of ordinary-looking jail cells. A sink. A cot bolted to the wall. Bars to keep the prisoners in, like any county lockup. All the cells are empty except for the one on the end. It’s wrapped in strong Kevlar netting so that whoever is inside can’t get their claws through it.