The Librarian After The Apocalypse

Supernatural Horror Comedy Suspense

Strangely Scary Funny

Brian Yansky

Copyright

Copyright © 2025 Brian Yansky

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to an actual person, living or dead, or actual events, is coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.

First Printing: 2025

Chapter One

Iwoke up. I was in a fog so thick I could feel it soaking into my skin. It was like I was swimming through the air. I couldn’t see a thing but the gray white. I felt lost. It reminded me of how I felt my first night in the haunted woods after I’d been kicked out (literally) of a clown car by, you guessed it, a clown.

I’ve never liked clowns.

I walked a dozen steps. When I took the thirteenth, I stepped off a cliff and fell. That was a shock. I was sure any moment I would hit bottom, and my head would explode like a pumpkin dropped on the pavement and all my bones would snap like twigs. The fog turned black, as if my thoughts of the inevitable had changed the very air. Then it got hot, which was strange. Also, there was a familiar smell. Rotting flesh. Sulphur.

“Father?” I asked.

“You should have joined us against the angels,” Lucifer shouted down at me. “We’re family. Family sticks together, Kevin Austin.”

“Right.”

“Don’t get mouthy with me. You did not support your family, and look what happened.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“You’re falling in the bottomless pit of hell. That’s what happened. I’m sorry, but it’s your own fault. Of course, when I say I’m sorry, you know what I mean.”

“You’re not sorry at all?” I asked.

“Exactly.”

On the bright side, I was not going to splat any time soon. That was not really much of a bright side, though. In fact, it was kind of just another side of the dark side. This reminded me of a T-shirt I once saw: Hold on, let me overthink this.

“You should have fought beside your family against the tyrant’s armies. What’s the tyrant say? You reap what you sow. He did have some catchy sayings. I have to admit that much.”

The devil could be harsh. It was sort of his MO. Family. Couldn’t live with them, couldn’t kill them. Well, you could. Actually, during the uncivil civil war in hell, many of my brothers and sisters had killed each other, so when I thought it over, I guess that old saying didn’t really apply to us.

Then I remembered something I should have remembered earlier about the bottomless pit of hell. It was in hell. And I knew the gates of hell had been closed just before the battle of Armageddon.

“This is a dream,” I announced.

“No, it’s not,” Lucifer said.

“The gates of hell are closed,” I said. “It has to be a dream.”

“I am Lucifer, King of the Underworld. The gates must open for me.”

“Except the creator made the gates of hell. Not you. They seemed to close because the Battle of Armageddon came to be. They’re still closed, aren’t they?”

“Yet another illustration of the creator’s bureaucratic failure,” Lucifer said. “No one is able to open either the gates of hell or the gates of heaven. There’s no one to even complain to. I complained to Michael, who acts like he knows everything about the creator, but all he could say was he filed a report. You know how many reports he’s filed since the creator checked out?”

“I’m guessing a lot.”

“Over a trillion. You know how many have received a response of any kind?”

“I’m guessing, from your tone, none.”

“That’s right. None. Zero. If you piled the reports one upon one, they would stretch to the moon.”

“Is that true?”

“It could be,” he said.

I’d read somewhere that the average human told seven lies per day. The devil would need to at least double that to have any self-respect.

“Anyway, you can’t throw me in the bottomless pit,” I pointed out, “if you can’t get to the bottomless pit of hell. This isn’t real.”

“You are my least favorite son,” he said.

That was hurtful, but he was Lucifer, Prince of Darkness. At the same time, he was my father. It was confusing. I woke. But it turned out escaping his punishment didn’t mean I escaped my punishment.

Chapter Two

Iwoke in Olive’s bedroom in the big house her father had left her when he died the third or fourth time. Olive wasn’t in the bed next to me. Fluffy, who was always close when I woke, usually sleeping over by the fireplace in this room, wasn’t in the room either. I was alone. The house was silent. It felt cold.

While I was relieved to be out of that dream of falling in the bottomless pit of hell, I had a bad feeling. The Battle of Armageddon had ended after countless deaths and injury because humans had released nuclear missiles. Many of these had exploded and contaminated the Earth. I knew it was bad.

Waking up alone wouldn’t normally upset me. But this wasn’t a normal day. I looked out the window. It was a gray morning.

I threw back the covers and got out of bed and quickly put on a pair of jeans, a T-shirt and a sweatshirt, and hurried down the long stairway to the first floor, shouting Olive’s name as I went. No answer. I checked the rooms on my way to the kitchen. I called Olive’s name again and then Fluffy’s.

Still no answer. I had a bad feeling. I told myself there was no reason for a bad feeling. They could be out for a walk or in the backyard or somewhere else in the house. These were all possibilities. But I didn’t believe myself.

I hurried toward the kitchen, the most likely place she’d be in the morning. She wasn’t there, and Fluffy wasn’t either. I went down to the basement. The big freezer where Olive’s father had stored bodies (a zombie needed certain special accommodations for his condition) was still in the center of the room. Now it had plants on it. No one, alive or dead, was in the basement.

I went through the whole house and ended in the attic, a cluttered place full of precarious piles of books and papers and old magazines. Toward the back were shelves of glass jars filled with murky liquids and possibly a body part or two.

Olive and Fluffy were not in the house. All right, they were somewhere else. I checked the backyard. They were not in the backyard. I banged out the front door and down the stairs off the porch and hurried toward the town square. I didn’t see them on the way, which was disappointing.

I looked around for a familiar face… or any face. It was a rare day that no one was out. This was a rare day. When I got to the square and the park, I still saw no one. I felt no one. I felt alone.

I looked around for signs of a struggle. There weren’t any. No blood staining the streets or doors or sides of buildings. No broken windows. No broken anything.

“Hello!” I shouted.

No one shouted back.

“Anyone there?” I shouted.

What was going on? I stood still and looked around. This time I did look with my third eye. I was sure then. I was alone.

Chapter Three

Iwalked to Lucy’s Café and put my face up against the window. How many times had I done that since I’d found my way to Eden? Looked in to see who was eating breakfast or to see if Olive was working or Rip Van Winkle was in his booth? Just yesterday, it had been full of nervous people. There had been the hum of voices and the sounds of plates and silverware being dumped into bus tubs.

Today it was not only vacant, but it also looked like it had been vacant for some time. Dust coated every surface like a gray blanket. The plants in the window boxes that Lucy had lovingly tended to were withered brown and brittle husks. How could this happen overnight?

Answer: it couldn’t.

I walked along the buildings and looked in store windows. Like the café, none of them looked like they had been in use yesterday, but I knew all of them had. It was like a dream where things didn’t make sense. It was no dream, though.

I found myself at the ghostbusters’ lab. I tried the door. It was locked, so I broke in.

The lab had scientific equipment crowding every available surface. Half-dismantled devices trailing wires like electronic intestines, and what appeared to be a particle accelerator miniaturized to the size of a coffee table. But between the scientific instruments stood crystal balls wired to laptops, a Ouija board modified with circuit boards, and jars of ingredients labeled with both chemical formulas and names like Eye of Newt (Dehydrated) and Genuine Banshee Tears (Synthetic).

The back wall held a ghost trap that looked like a steampunk vacuum cleaner. Copper tubes spiraled around a glass chamber etched with protective sigils while digital readouts flashed error messages. A handwritten note taped to it read: DO NOT ACTIVATE UNLESS QUANTUM MOONPHASE ALIGNMENT IS OPTIMAL OR UNLESS DAVE BRINGS DONUTS AND WANTS TO SAY HELLO TO HIS DEAD MOM.

A row of filing cabinets stood against one wall, drawers labeled: Confirmed, Probable, Dangerous, Harmless. Above them hung a map of Eden with multicolored pins marking recent supernatural hotspots.

Unlike Lucy’s Café, the ghostbusters’ lab showed signs of hasty abandonment. Coffee cups on tables with dried coffee in them. A jacket haphazardly hung over a chair (Ryan’s). Walt’s open notebook, and, in Walt’s neat handwriting, the words “Radiation levels rising as expected and—”

And what? Walt wasn’t the kind of man to stop writing in the middle of a sentence unless he was interrupted.

What had happened here?

I sat down in Ryan’s chair at Ryan’s desk and tried to see what he had seen. It was one of the many things Master Bubba Lee had taught me when I was young. A way of reading the past. I saw nothing. It was frustrating.

I went over to The Bar and looked in. It hadn’t been cleaned up. Glasses were on tables. Bar stools were askew. A dartboard on the far wall still had darts in it.

“Anyone here?” I shouted.

Silence was my answer.

I was the librarian. I was supposed to protect the town. I had failed pretty miserably. I had failed Olive. I was worried about everyone, including my hellhound, Fluffy (though generally speaking, a hellhound could take care of himself in any situation) but Olive’s disappearance was more frightening than all the others combined. I loved her. I had let her down.

Then I had an idea. The library. My library. If no living person was in town, maybe a dead one would do. I hurried to the library.

Chapter Four

Iwalked along the stream. I didn’t see one fish in it. Often, they had something to say, frequently derogatory or quarrelsome, but not today. I would have welcomed even a derogatory or quarrelsome talking fish today. I was beginning to feel like I was the last survivor on Earth. It wasn’t a good feeling.

I looked across the stream at the haunted forest. No monkeys in the trees, no mournful banshee calling, not one wicked witch’s cackle. There was at least the haunted forest’s usual threatening, dark presence reaching out like a pack of hungry corpses grasping for prey. That was somewhat reassuring in an admittedly twisted way.

When I got to the library, I saw deep scratches on the door. Something had tried to force its way in. The creator had made the library and given it magical protections, and it had repelled numerous attempts at invasion. Whatever had left those scratches hadn’t been successful at getting past those protections. I put my ring (given to me by the former mayor when he offered me the librarian position) into the lock, and the door opened, and I went inside. 

“Olive!” I shouted. “Fluffy!”

No answer. I knew there wouldn’t be. My bad feeling had just gotten worse as time passed. I stopped at my desk. Nothing looked disturbed. In fact, nothing looked out of place in the library.

“Bat,” I called out to the ghost. I waited. I called his name a second time.

This silence was getting to me.

Bat Masterson was pretty famous in the old Wild West. He’d been a lot of things: buffalo hunter, gambler, lawman, journalist, and gunfighter. He’d been a lawman with Wyatt Earp in Tombstone. And now he was the Eden library ghost. Or at least he had been.

Even the dead weren’t answering me now. It was discouraging.

I tried calling my demon half-brother, Dread, telepathically. We had a connection. He didn’t answer.

I sat at my desk. I thought about what could have happened. They could have been kidnapped. The whole town. That seemed unlikely, but I was out of likely scenarios.

I knew someone who had wanted to take them, had planned on taking them, in order to feed their souls to his master in a galaxy far, far away. His name was The Harvester, and he had planned on taking everyone’s spark for the god of gods, but we had convinced him that the god of gods had brainwashed him and he should go back to him without taking any souls.

At least that was what we thought.

But now I had to consider the possibility that he’d tricked us and somehow hid himself until he could return and conquer the town of the Eden.

Chapter Five

Ineeded to get out of Eden and find someone (alive, dead, plant, tree, animal, monster, demon, god, someone or something) who knew what had happened in Eden. I had no choice but to go into the haunted forest, which was not a place I liked to go into, especially alone without my hellhound. I didn’t have a choice.

I went downstairs to my apartment. I was going to get my backpack and some food. None of the food in my fridge was any good. There hadn’t been much in there anyway since I mostly ate at Lucy’s Cafe, but with the Battle of Armageddon keeping me away for many days, what I had was ruined. I would stop by Raphael’s store and pick up some supplies on the way out of town.

Before I left my apartment, I went to my bedroom and tried to open the door to the Collection of Curiosities, planning to get the magical sword that might or might not be Excalibur, in case I needed a weapon in the haunted woods.

Which I would because the haunted woods lived up to its name.

The door wouldn’t open. I tried it several times. I even tried a coaxing spell I’d picked up with Olive. Having a witch for a girlfriend did have its perks. The spell didn’t work, though. Nothing was working.

As I climbed the stairs, it occurred to me I might be dead. Maybe I was a ghost. I’d been killed by someone (honestly there would be no shortage of suspects) and now I was here, alone, waiting for Death to take me off to the afterworld. Death must have gotten held up somewhere.

I didn’t feel dead, but maybe the dead didn’t feel dead. For all I knew, that was the way it was for all dead people. They kept thinking they were alive.

Or maybe I was the one who was alive. Maybe everyone else in Eden had either died or been called up to heaven. There were all those prophecies about The Rapture and what was supposed to happen after Armageddon. Maybe I had been left behind because I didn’t make the first cut to heaven. I was Lucifer’s son, after all.

It was one possibility. Olive and the others, at this moment, were sitting on a cloud sipping nectar margaritas. I was alone down here in an abandoned Eden. Olive wouldn’t do that, though. She’d find me. She’d find a way to find me.

I was going to find her. I had to.

Chapter Six

Idecided to make a quick trip up to the second floor before I ran off to the haunted forest. Maybe I would find some answers in a book in one of the magical rooms up there. I was the librarian, after all. This was a library. If I could save myself a trip to those haunted woods, I ought to give books a shot.

As I walked through the stacks, I thought hard about a room that had books about what happened after Armageddon and, more specifically, what happened on Earth. I walked down the hall on the other side of the stacks. As often happened, a new room appeared in the rooms of the hallway. This one had After Armageddon written over it.

I went inside. I scanned the shelves: The Post-Apocalyptic Survival Guide for Supernatural Beings; The Cosmic Aftermath; Raptures, Ruptures, and Rifts: Dimensional Consequences of Armageddon; The Empty Earth: Documented Cases of Mass Disappearances Following Divine Conflict; Ghosting the Apocalypse: A Spirit’s Guide to Post-Destruction Reality; and The Final Revelation: Prophecies of the World After the Last Battle.

I pulled the three most promising books from the shelves and settled into a reading chair. As I flipped through Raptures, Ruptures, and Rifts: Dimensional Consequences of Armageddon, a passage caught my eye:

When forces of heaven and hell clash with sufficient magnitude, the fabric of reality itself may tear. These dimensional ruptures can cause subtle dislocations where inhabitants of one dimension become imperceptible to those in another, despite occupying the same physical space. In documented cases following lesser divine conflicts, subjects report a sensation of complete isolation despite being surrounded by bustling communities.

Most concerning are phase shifts, where individuals become dimensionally desynchronized from their surroundings. The affected person exists in a shadow dimension that mimics their original reality but lacks its inhabitants. Time flows differently in these pocket dimensions—what feels like hours to the displaced individual might represent mere seconds or several years in the primary dimension.

I sat back. I didn’t really know what dimensionally desynchronized meant, but I knew it wasn’t good. Shadow dimension wasn’t any better. I tried using my third eye to see if there might be another dimension nearby. I couldn’t see anything. But was that because there wasn’t anything to see or because I, displaced individual that I was, wasn’t able to see far enough to identify that other reality, the one with Olive, Fluffy, and all my friends?

I reached out like I might be able to touch the other dimension if I just thought hard enough. I felt only air. I thought of who might help me get home if I wasn’t actually in my home, which I might be. Who better than the wizard who lived in the haunted woods and was wise and probably the most powerful wizard on the mountain and happened to owe me a favor? He would be my destination. I would go to his mansion, far into the woods, and ask for his help.

One other book caught my attention. The book was titled The Final Revelation: Prophecies of the World After the Last Battle. That was a catchy title.

And after the Great Battle, when heaven and hell are sealed, a witness shall remain in the empty world. Neither dead nor among the living, the witness walks between worlds as a bridge. He will document what fills the world. His task will take centuries, eons most likely, but he will survive until this document can be given to the creator.

That was an icepick to the heart. Was I this witness? What if I was the one doomed to walk between these worlds, writing up this report for the creator, who was off creating other universes and might not come back for eons… or at all? Maybe he’d make one of those universes so perfect he would never leave it. He’d hang up creating universes because he’d think to himself: I can’t do any better than this.

I needed to get to the wizard.

One version of hell. Spend eternity alone, writing up reports. That sounded worse than the real hell, which I had been to many times visiting family.

I needed to get to the wizard.

Chapter Seven

Iwalked back downstairs and to the lobby of the library. I looked around carefully. No human. No ghost. I got my backpack, which had nothing in it, and walked over to Raphael’s store to get supplies. There wasn’t much there, but there were some cans of pork and beans and some jerky. I loaded up.

I walked back to the square. I was hoping that maybe the time cat would be hanging around on one of the trees. Being a cat, she would naturally look for ways to annoy me, but she would also probably know what was going on. But no time cat, not even a floating head. No hotel either, I noticed. It had been in the square last night, but it came and went, like the church, which was also missing.

You’d think if The Rapture had visited Eden last night, there would be at least traces of a divine presence. A faint glow, at least. I mean, this was divine prophecy we were talking about. The world had never been shy about seeing Jesus and the Virgin Mary all over the place. On tortillas, a Wal-Mart receipt, a Cheetos cheese curl that the discoverer called Cheesus, and on a frying pan after he made a grilled cheese—to name a few. (And yes, the connection between cheese and divinity did not escape my attention. God worked in mysterious ways). Where was Cheesus when you needed him?

I walked over to the bridge to the haunted forest. I was halfway over it when I ran into an invisible wall. I tried getting down on my knees and crawling under the invisible wall, but that didn’t work. I slipped under the bridge and tried wading across the stream, but that didn’t work. I went back to the bank and walked down to a deeper spot. I swam, and in the middle of a breath stroke, my head banged against the invisible wall.

That hurt.

Then I thought about something I should have thought about before. Broomstick. Olive’s broomstick, Broomhilda, which she kept in the kitchen closet and which, being a witch’s broomstick, was, besides being useful in housework, capable of flight. I would fly over the invisible wall.

I ran to Olive’s and to the kitchen at the back of the house, and I opened the closet door, and Broomhilda was there. Finally, something was working out. I asked her if she would fly me to the wizard’s and explained about the invisible wall and how we might have to fly very high to get over it.

She didn’t respond. She gave me a blank stare, which was hard to do when you were a stick of wood with straw bristles.

“Broomhilda?” I asked. “Are you messing with me?”

If she was messing with me, she didn’t break character.

“We need to get going,” I said, carrying her out into the backyard. “We don’t have time for games.”

I put her between my legs and expected some kind of sexual innuendo, which Broomhilda had been very free with in the past.

Nothing. Not one peep from her.

“Up,” I said, and lifted the handle so the broom was pointed up.

No liftoff.

“I’m getting ticked off now. Olive is likely in danger. All of them are in danger. I need your help.”

I began to be uncertain that this broom was Broomhilda. It looked like her. It had been in the closet where she rested when she wasn’t being used. But this broom seemed to just be a broom. A stick and some straw. No animation at all.

I took it back into the house and put it back in the closet. I looked around the kitchen and stopped at the breakfast table, thinking back to a morning before the Battle of Armageddon when we were eating pancakes at it. We were anxious. Potential end of the world would do that to you. Olive had gotten up and sat on my lap, and we’d started kissing, and without one word being said, we both knew that we were the world. We had each other first, before anyone else, before anything else.

I couldn’t lose Olive. It had taken me my whole life to find her.

All right, I thought. All right. The broom wasn’t going to be any help unless I wanted to clean up, which I didn’t.

I went to the ghostbusters’ lab and got a drill and took the drill to the bridge. I thought if I could drill a small hole in the invisible wall, maybe I could enlarge it with sidekicks or back-kicks or running jump kicks, and it would break enough to create a hole I could crawl through.

That didn’t work. So I got a larger drill. Then a jackhammer. Then a machine gun I found hidden in the ghostbusters’ closet . Nothing worked. I was drenched in sweat and disappointment. I lay on the grass by the bank of the stream, panting heavily.

“Did you?” a voice asked.

“Did I what?” I asked back to the voice.

Honestly, it wasn’t the first time I’d heard a disembodied voice. I had not led a sheltered life when it came to encounters with the supernatural.

“Did you?” the voice asked again. It was a deep voice. It was vaguely familiar.

“Darth Vader?” I asked. I mean it did kind of sound like him. It really did.

No response.

Chapter Eight

Itried walking around the edge of town, feeling my way along the invisible wall for a weak spot. There were none.

Maybe the ghostbusters had constructed the wall along with Olive’s coven of witches. I knew they had worked on something to keep demons from attacking. Maybe this was their invisible wall. I went to the lab to look for notes about the wall. There were no notes.

I was getting nowhere, literally. I walked back to the library. I did the only thing I could think to do—I laid on the sofa in the library and went to sleep.

That was my plan.

I could hear Olive’s voice—in my head.

“That’s your plan? You’re going to go to sleep?”

“That’s my plan,” I said.

“That’s not a plan.”

“I’m taking a nap. That’s my plan.”

“I don’t see a group of firefighters look up at a burning building and say, ‘I think this is a good time for taking a nap.’ How about some S.W.A.T. officers involved in a hostage situation? Do they, in the middle of it all, say, ‘Looks like a good time for a nap.?’”

“They have their plan, and I have mine,” I said.

“You do not have a plan. You very rarely have a plan.”

“I have a plan.”

“You’re having a cozy little nap. Meanwhile, we’re all being executed in the town square.”

“Really?”

“It’s possible,” she said. “How should I know? I’m just you talking to you. A figment of your imagination. But you could imagine we are, which means I can.”

“I better get to sleep then,” I said.

“This is disappointing,” she said.

I missed her. It felt like we had been apart longer than a few hours. I was aware that time was relative, but sometimes in Eden it was more like a relative, one of those trickster relatives, playing little jokes. Slipping into the past. Sneaking into the future.

Still, taking a nap was the only thing I could think to do. I recited the words that helped me get where I wanted to go. Olive had called it a spell, but to me it was more like slipping into a magical room. I had a dream. I dream-walked.

I could feel myself slipping back in time, farther and farther. The Eden I was in fell away. There were geological changes. Then there was an entrance to a cave, and I went in. A small brown man in animal furs sat by a fire, smoking a pipe. He motioned for me to come in and sit down beside him, and I did.

“Traveler,” he said. “You from the future or the past?”

“I’m going to guess the future.”

He shrugged. “Seen men dressed like you from future and past.”

That was troubling, but I put it on the back burner because I had a lot on the front burner that was more important to my immediate needs.

“You’re a witch doctor?” I asked.

He pointed to a sign. It said Witch Doctor, He Who Talks To Bears.

“You’re dream-walking?” he asked.

I admitted I was. “You talk to bears?”

“I’m talking to you,” he said.

That was when I realized I was a bear. A big brown one. Hey, it was a dream.

“Did you?” he asked.

“You said that,” I said. “That was you?”

“It could have been,” he said.

“I was hoping for some mystical force that might save me, and reunite me with Olive and Fluffy, and bring back the town if I could answer the mystical force’s question.”

“Afraid not.”

“That’s disappointing.”

He passed me the pipe. “Did you end the world?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“Coyote said one who ended the world would visit me.”

Did I end the world? Could I say with absolute certainty I hadn’t?

“Isn’t he known as the trickster god?” I asked.

“Sometimes trickster, sometimes teacher.” He poked the fire with a stick.

“I didn’t end the world,” I said.

“I believe you,” he said. “I’m going to take your name off the list. You are free to go on with your quest.”

“Is that what I’m on?”

He shrugged. “We are all on a quest. Not all of us realize it, though.”

“That’s wise,” I said. “Maybe, since you’re so wise, you could tell me how to escape the force field that seems to be holding me in Eden.”

He took a deep toke from the pipe and blew smoke into my face. “Dig under the grave where the angel fell to Earth. Be careful of the viper.”

I woke with a start on the library sofa. I really hated vipers.

But I didn’t see that I had a choice.

I went to the graveyard on the edge of town and the peculiar tombstone in that graveyard. The words The Great Celestial Mistake of 1888 were carved into it. According to Eden legend, an angel had been thrown out of heaven by another angel for lying to him about sugar, which he had claimed was good for you. The angel had landed in the Eden graveyard. He had stayed for a few weeks, eating as many sweets as he could and also, it was said, sleeping with every woman in town. He had some magical attraction. He slept with them all and then ghosted them. A group of angry women had put the tombstone up where he’d landed.

I walked over to Olive’s and got a shovel from Olive’s garden shed and headed toward the graveyard. I dug my hole under the force field. The sun was midday bright. I worked up a sweat.

The viper slipped out and reared up, cobra style. He hissed, and I stepped back, raising the shovel. He looked into my eyes, and I looked into his. He shrugged (I really wished I could read shrugs because that might have been an interesting one) and slithered off.

I was able to slip under the force field. The witch doctor had known what he was talking about.

Chapter Nine

Iwalked into the haunted forest along a path I knew. The forest looked much like it had in the past, but I noticed differences here and there. Quicksand where it hadn’t been even a grain of sand before. Poisonous flowers swaying in the wind but not singing. That kind of thing. Also, none of the trees had anything to say to me which, to be honest, was kind of nice. They could be chatty and unkind. From time to time, they had tried to harm me. They excused their actions by complaining about boredom. They liked to talk about the unfairness of their situation. They never got to see the world or even any of the forest beyond their little place in the woods. Roots. You put down roots, and you weren’t going anywhere.

Many trees had warned me never to put down roots, but other trees had told me that I should put down roots. “You always know where you are, what you are, where you belong when you put down roots,” they argued.

I hurried toward the wizard’s mansion. I hoped to run into another human. Even a wicked witch or headhunter. I thought I saw a hide-behind hiding behind one of the giant trees, but it might have just been a shadow.

I walked for an hour in the damp cold of the forest. I heard something once that sounded like a whistle, but when I stopped walking to listen more closely, I heard only the wind. The woods opened into a grassy clearing, and a tall black tower rose on the other side. I’d never seen the tower before. It was taller than the trees, but it hadn’t been visible to me until now. It filled the air with magic thick as smoke.

The haunted forest had always been unpredictable.

Twelve black horses, ridden by twelve darkly dressed wizards (those pointy hats gave them away) galloped out of the wide doors of the tower. They were on me in seconds, which was unlikely given the distance. Magic. Magic surrounded me. Wizards surrounded me, too.

I admit that despite their threatening presence, I was relieved to see I wasn’t alone on this mountain.

“Just the wizards I was looking for,” I said.

The wizards sat atop horses and snorted, puffs of sulfurous smoke spewing from their nostrils. Their eyes shifted from brown to red.

The wizards themselves were of all ages, but only a few had gray hair. Most had hair black as the night. Their robes shimmered. Their faces were mostly hidden beneath the brims of their pointy hats, but what I could see was that they looked alike. At first, I thought they must all be brothers, but they did not just look similar. They looked exactly alike. They all carried staffs topped with crystals that hummed with power, and several wore bandoliers of potion vials across their chests like ammunition belts.

The horses stomped the ground with their hooves, and the wizards pointed their staffs, crystal end out, at me. They moved in, tightening the circle around me. I could feel the horses’ hot breaths, hear the exhale of air.

“The wizard of wizards would have a word.”

I couldn’t tell which one spoke.

“Excellent,” I said.

Wizard of wizards. That reminded me of The Harvester talking about the god of gods in a galaxy far, far away. I stood my ground, which was all I could do. There was no place to run. The riders pulled the horses back, and one of them motioned for me to climb up behind him. I could feel the ropey muscles of the rider as we rode. In my experience, most wizards were soft. Often, they were tall and a bit bowed. Possibly from all that time spent studying their craft, or maybe it was the weight of magic that bent them. Or maybe it was a chicken and egg thing. Maybe if you were tall and a bit bowed you said to yourself, “I might just make a good wizard.”

These wizards were different. They were fierce. Strong. They looked ready to ride off to war.

A great gate opened as we neared the tower. We rode into a walled-off courtyard, and the wizards dismounted, and I did, too. What looked like novices took their horses off to be cared for. I followed the wizards into the tower and was taken to a large room with high ceilings and stained glass windows. The windows, like the wall paintings, were all of wizards who looked much like the wizards I followed up to the front altar.

In a way, the room felt like a church or temple, but there was something off. Bad things had happened here. My third eye saw into the past sometimes. I saw blood in this room. Sacrifices maybe. But there was also the distinct smell of royal blood. Kings had been killed here. It happened. It had happened a lot down in the flatlands in our past. The only way for most men to become king, who weren’t in line to become king, was to create a vacancy. That meant one of those you-couldn’t-make-an-omelet-without-cracking-a-few-eggs situations.

Another wizard, dressed as those who had brought me in, came out from a side room and sat on a raised chair that was made of gold with a lush, red velvet seat and back.

The wizard of wizards, no doubt.

“King Konstance,” a guard yelled, introducing him to me and the world at large.

A man followed the king. He was twice the size of the king and muscular and bald-headed (no pointy hat) and wore leather armor.

“Sit,” the king said.

There wasn’t a chair.

Still, he had told me to sit, so I fell back, expecting my butt to hit the floor. Instead, a chair appeared under me.

“Traveler?” the wizard of wizards asked.

“I’ve been called that,” I said. In fact, literally called that by the witch doctor recently.

“From where?” he asked.

“Eden, Your Majesty. Do you know what happened to Eden?”

His blue eyes rested on me. I felt him pushing into my mind, trying to read my thoughts. I pushed him right out.

His face darkened. “It has been uninhabited for centuries. Destroyed by monks.”

“That’s not possible,” I said.

“No one has been able to enter Eden since the monks moved on. They were a branch from the West. Wanderers. They have not been seen for centuries.”

This was bad news. The witch doctor had asked me if I was from the past or future. I began to worry that I was traveling through time. Maybe I was in the same place but just a different time. The thought was disturbing.

“Was the Battle of Armageddon and the destruction of the world below the flatlands, with nuclear weapons, a few days ago?” I asked the king.

“There has been no battle. We have heard stories of a world beyond the mountain, but no one has ever been there and returned.”

“You’ve had travelers though,” I said.

“Yes. Visitors who are not from the mountain. They speak of other worlds. Tell me of yours.”

I told him.

“Always travelers are good storytellers. You tell a good story, traveler. We appreciate your visit. The inhabitants of the forest avoid us.”

“Why is that?”

He shrugged. “Who can say? Possibly it is because we end up killing them nearly every time we meet.”

“That would do it,” I said.

He smiled in a distinctly wolfish way.

“I’d like to ask for your help, Your Majesty,” I said.

“My help,” he said. “Of course. We kings get asked for help all the time. Of course, there will be a price. There must be a price.”

“Of course,” I said. “I’d like help getting to my realm. I’m pretty sure this mountain is not my mountain. Can you help me?”

“Possibly. For a price.”

“What price?”

“Your heart might do. Your beating heart. Yes, that will do. One little organ.”

“I’m pretty sure that would kill me.”

“You never know.”

“I’m pretty sure everyone knows.”

“I offer my help, and I name a price, and you want to argue that it is too high? I am offended. It is not wise to offend the wizard of wizards.”

“Apologies,” I said.

I covertly scanned the exits. The wizards that had brought me in stood by them.

He tapped his fingers on the arm of his throne. “This is a disappointing conversation.”

“I’d like it if your price could be something that wouldn’t kill me,” I said.

“Now you are dictating terms. Is that what I’m hearing, stranger?”

I kept quiet. I wondered if I could jump high enough to crash through one of the stained glass windows. I thought not.

He shrugged. “You will fight Akam in the arena. If you win, I will let you leave. If you lose, I will eat your beating heart.”

“You don’t want to eat my beating heart,” I said. “Why would you want to eat a beating heart?”

“Have you ever seen anyone eat a beating heart?”

“No,” I said.

“Exactly,” he said.

I wanted to argue, but I could sort of see what the wizard meant. It was bold. I supposed you didn’t get to be the wizard of wizards without being bold.

“I’m guessing,” I said, “that Akam is the large man standing next to you.”

There was that wolfish smile again.

“Never defeated,” the king said.

Chapter Ten

Iwas transported to an arena carved directly into the bedrock beneath the tower. It was shadowy, with flickering torches on the walls. The circular fighting pit was about thirty feet by thirty feet. The black stone floor was etched with glowing runes that pulsed with sickly green light.

Above, twelve tiers of stone benches circled the arena, already filling with wizard spectators in their dark robes and pointed hats. There were also some others—servants of the pointed hats was my guess—who sat in the cheap seats. There were guards positioned around the room. They looked like Akam’s brothers, but when I looked more closely, I thought they looked more alike than just brothers. There was something seriously strange about the gene pool in this tower.

What struck me most were the bones. Hundreds of skeletal remains had been incorporated into the architecture. A dozen ribcages acted as grotesque chandeliers that hung from the vaulted ceiling. They cast a greenish light.

The king sat on a portable version of his throne, with a red-robed assistant beside him, another Akam. At the far end of the arena, a heavy iron portcullis rose up to the surface, and the Akam that I would have to fight appeared. I noticed he had a sword and a shield. I had nothing. Not even a fork and knife. From what I remembered, even the Romans had given the slaves who faced the gladiators a dull sword. It seemed a little unsporting to give me nothing. As was often the case, there was no one nearby for me to complain to.

The wizard of wizards spoke, his voice amplified, as if the arena itself were a microphone. “This traveler has come to us begging for help. And because we are merciful (I thought he was using the royal we in this case) we have not cut off his head. Instead, we have given him the chance to live by fighting Akam to the death.”

This got a surprisingly hearty laugh from the crowd. I wondered why. I mean, I could guess. I looked like a child beside Akam. He stood at least eight feet tall, his bald head gleaming under the sickly green light, with intricate runic tattoos covering his scalp and continuing down his massive neck. Heavy gold hoops hung from each ear. His hulking frame seemed carved from stone rather than flesh, with muscles rippling beneath bronze skin that was crisscrossed with countless battle scars. He looked savage and made for battle and full of confidence bred of victories. I was six-feet tall, somewhat muscular, but very much human. I was facing a monster or a god; either way, I was hopelessly outmatched.

I could see a lot of betting was going on in the stands. I was guessing ninety-nine percent were against me. I didn’t blame them. I wasn’t sure even I would bet on me.

This was before the wizards of wizards even delivered the punchline. “I may have forgotten to mention to him that Akam is immortal, unless we kill him. No other has ever succeeded.”

The second round of laughter was much louder. There were some very unpleasant howls. The wizards stomped their booted feet on the wooden stands.

“Let the games begin,” the king declared.

A slave or novice banged a very large gong, and Akam began moving toward me. He advanced with surprising grace for someone his size. I was expecting lumbering steps, but he moved like a nimble dancer. Definite disappointment.

“How about a weapon?” I shouted.

The wizard shrugged. “I will be merciful. Especially since it will help prolong the slaughter.”

A wooden sword appeared in my hand. The king was quite the comedian.

Akam lunged at me, and I barely managed to dodge the slash of his sword. The second swing of his sword nearly cut off my ear. I dove, or maybe fell, into a roll. He was on me before I could get to my feet.

I’d been counting on my quickness to be an advantage. Unfortunately, he was as quick as I was. Each time I dodged, he adjusted instantly, leaving me no time to counter or even catch my breath. His sword became a silver blur, and his shield blocked every attempt I made to hit him with my wooden blade. On my fourth attempt, the wooden sword cracked and split in two.

An immortal giant with skills and quickness. This was pretty much the nightmare of every fighter.

A slash caught my sleeve, tearing fabric and drawing blood.

“I expected more from a traveler,” Akam said, his voice surprisingly melodious. He could probably sing, too. “I have killed seventeen of your kind. None have disappointed me like this.”

That stung. Not as much as the slash of the sword, but still.

I noticed that each time Akam moved, the runes on the floor pulsed brighter. He was drawing power from them. Where were they drawing power? From the other Akams? They didn’t seem like they had magic. They were muscle. Protectors. It was the wizards. Had to be.

I dodged another swing of Akam’s blade, stumbling backward but managing to stay on my feet. The crowd jeered.

“So you’ve killed seventeen travelers,” I said, circling to buy myself some time. “The wizard must be very pleased with his killing machine.”

Akam’s expression didn’t change, but his next swing seemed a little rushed. “I please all my masters,” he replied, advancing on me again.

I rolled under a horizontal slash, feeling the air disturbed by the blade just above my head. As I came up, I noticed again how the runes beneath Akam’s feet brightened when he moved over them.

Why did the wizards feel the need to use magical energy? Their fighter was obviously winning.

“Of course you do,” I said, my breath raspy. “You’re a good slave. Just like your brothers guarding the doors.”

“We are warriors in service to the great wizards,” he replied, though there was something hollow in his voice.

“Warriors choose their battles,” I said, dancing away from another attack. “Slaves fight when their masters pull the strings.”

The wizard of wizards leaned forward on his throne, eyes narrowing. He couldn’t hear our conversation over the crowd’s noise, but he could tell I was making Akam less careful.

“We come from great warriors of the plains,” Akam growled, pressing me backward toward the wall. “Once, we ruled all, including these woods. But times change, and we have changed with them. It is our fate.”

“No such thing.”

“You are not a warrior.”

“No,” I said. “But I’m not a slave either. You know, these wizards are evil. They use visitors for sport. I bet they do all kinds of terrible things. And you help them.”

“We have no choice. It is our fate.”

“The runes control you,” I said, pointing at the floor. “I can see them feeding you power, but at the same time, controlling you. The wizards use you like puppets.”

Akam hesitated again, and this time, I saw him glance down at the glowing patterns beneath his feet.

“These runes are the source of our strength,” he said, but uncertainty had crept into his voice.

“They’re your chains,” I countered. “Look around you. Your identical brothers stand guard like statues. You fight for the wizards’ amusement. You have no honor. Have you ever chosen anything for yourself?”

A commotion from the stands interrupted our exchange. Two wizards were arguing heatedly, their voices rising above the general din.

“He should have been dead by now!” shouted a thin wizard with a jeweled amulet. “The Akam is not trying hard enough.”

“The traveler is faster than he looks,” replied his companion, a corpulent wizard with rings on every finger. “Pay up!”

“You are doing something, some bit of hidden magic.”

“You will pay.”

“I will not!”

The thin wizard’s face contorted with rage. He raised his staff, pointing it not at the other wizard but at one of the Akam guards standing by his side. A bolt of sickly yellow energy shot from the staff. It struck the guard square in the chest. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, with horrifying slowness, the guard began to crumble—not falling apart but dissolving into a fine dust that drifted to the floor.

The arena fell silent. My Akam opponent stood frozen, sword half-raised, watching as his identical brother disintegrated before his eyes. When nothing remained but a pile of dust and empty armor, he turned to me, his expression transformed by shock and dawning comprehension.

“They kill you for nothing,” I said. “Look at your brother. I bet that has happened many times.”

“Many times,” Akam admitted.

“You say you were once honorable warriors. It is not impossible that you might become such warriors again. You have to free yourself from the wizards, or you will never be more than their slaves.”

I was laying it on thick, but the thing was I believed me. It was obvious the wizards thought of the Akam as slaves. Property. How could the Akam think of themselves as anything more?

The wizard of wizards rose from his throne. “Enough of this delay! Akam, kill the traveler now or join your brother!”

Something changed in Akam’s eyes, a spark of defiance.

“I am sorry, Traveler, but I have no choice.”

“The runes,” I said quickly. “They’re networked. If we can disrupt enough of them, the whole system might fail for a minute or two. If you act, it might be enough time to attack and disrupt their power.”

“Not possible.”

“You could return to your home. The plains.”

“Our village,” he said. “I can hardly remember it.”

“Free yourself. The wizards are not all-powerful. You know them now. You’d have a chance.”

Olive would tell me that I didn’t have a plan. I was just improvising, making up a course of action as I spoke. True, but sometimes that was all you could do.

Akam swept me. I landed hard. He stood over me and raised his sword. Then he drove his sword directly onto one of the glowing runes, much too close to my right ear. The metal blade created an instant interruption in the pattern, causing the glyph to sputter and dim.

I created an illusion of a shield covering the runes. I thought it would give us a few valuable seconds. Akam was shouting to his brothers to take the wizards’ staffs. At first, they didn’t move, but then they did. They were much stronger than the wizards, and in the confusion, the wizards were overpowered.

Akam turned to me. “Run, Traveler. Find the exit behind the northern brazier. There is a passage the wizards use for emergencies.”

I didn’t need to be told twice. I sprinted toward the northern edge of the arena.

The rune network was returning, but the wizards didn’t have their staffs.

I reached the northern brazier and found what Akam had described—a small, cunningly concealed door built into the wall. As I fumbled with the latch, I glanced back at the arena.

Some Akams had reached the wizard of wizards and were hauling him from his throne. Other wizards were fleeing toward exits, only to find Akams waiting for them. Things were about to change.

The door clicked open under my fingers. I slipped through into a narrow stone passage lit by more of those eerie green flames. I ran. The passage twisted and turned, always ascending. My lungs burned, and my legs ached. Finally, the passage opened into what appeared to be a supply room within the black tower. I pushed aside a box of paper towels.

I paused to catch my breath, leaning against a shelf stacked with peculiar glass vials. Through a small window, I could see the clearing where I’d first encountered the wizards. I slipped out of the tower and into the haunted forest, the sounds of chaos still echoing from deep below.

Chapter Eleven

Iwalked deeper into the forest, hoping to find the wizard’s mansion. After a while, I was just hoping to find something, anything, that looked familiar. I would even be happy to run into the little mocking men woodsmen at that point. I would welcome being mocked by them. The forest seemed to be getting thicker and darker. I considered turning around. I had a feeling I’d made a wrong turn.

I kept walking though, and I ran straight into a witch. I didn’t recognize her, but I was glad to run into her. She was young. She looked early twenties. She was very pretty. She wore the traditional witch black. Was she a wicked witch? Probably. It was a haunted forest. I kept my guard up.

I asked her if she knew the way to the great wizard of the haunted woods.

“I’ve never heard of this wizard,” she said. “I know of no wizard who lives in a mansion, just the dark wizards of the black tower.”

“Not a helpful bunch.”

“They have that reputation.”

“Can you point me to a trail that takes me to a more welcoming part of the forest?”

“None more welcoming than me. You need rest and food before you go on. I have some tasty roast beef at home, and fried chicken, and a nice salad, and homemade bread that is delicious. Come back to my cottage. I’ll make you a plate of food you will never forget. And I can give you a map that will help you find your way.”

I was very tired, and my body ached from the fight. Also, I had no food and was very hungry. Also, a map sounded great. I weighed all this against my instinctual distrust of witches in the haunted forest.

I agreed to follow her to her cottage.

My stomach was growling in anticipation. I thanked her again for her kindness.

We walked deeper into the forest. It seemed like we walked a long time, but maybe it was just my fatigue and hunger deepening. Her cottage was small. It had crooked walls of rough timber with a thatched roof that curved and sagged in the middle. The surrounding trees were thick, almost like a wall. Roots of the trees crawled up to the dwelling, and in the dark, they looked like monster snakes.

In the faint light, I saw animal skulls hanging from the branches of trees. I hoped they were to ward off evil spirits, but I knew they could be to attract them.

She opened the door and asked me to step in. I hesitated. I could smell chicken roasting over a fire.

“Trust me,” she said. “You will be safe here. Even the wizards of the tower, who likely are searching for you, do not come this deep into the woods.”

I noticed to the right in the back of the house a row of gravestones disappearing in the trees.

“A family plot?”

“Pets,” she said. “It’s so hard to keep pets here in the haunted forest. There are terrors in the dark, and it is always dark here, so many of them get eaten.”

“What kind of pets?”

“Oh, you know, the kind that wander into the haunted forest not knowing what dangerous creatures live here.” She gave a little laugh.

The little hairs on the back of my neck raised. Those little hairs usually knew what they were doing. The warning was clear.

“Cobbler for dessert,” she said.

“Ice cream?”

“Of course,” she said.

I had a sweet tooth. I could taste cobbler and ice cream. A sweet tooth is a definite disadvantage in the cottage of a witch in a haunted wood.

I went inside, and we sat at a small wooden table, and everything was as she said it would be. She filled my plate many times. Cobbler and ice cream. I should have been full, but I felt like I could eat forever and not be satisfied. I yawned. I was so tired all of a sudden that I could hardly move. I laid my head down on the table.

When I woke, I was tied up like a pig, and there was a fire underneath me, and I felt it burning my backside. I was on what was called a spit, and the witch was sitting in a lawn chair, drinking a glass of wine.

“The cobbler gets them every time,” she said, triumphantly. “Though usually it’s the children who can’t resist.”

“It was excellent cobbler,” I said.

“Still hungry, though, aren’t you?”

I thought about it. “Food made of air?” I asked.

“Smarter than you look,” she said.

“Not smart enough.”

“Don’t beat yourself up. Hungry people seldom are smart enough. The world needs hungry people.”

This was true. Hungry people worried most about getting enough food not to be hungry. That kept them from focusing on how much very few had and how little everyone else had. Good for the few who had so much. Not good for the hungry.

“Those graves out there?” I asked.

“I call all of you who come to me pets. I’ve had so many. A prince once, a dragon master, a dogcatcher, teenagers, plump little children from the castles, and skinny street urchins. Complained the whole time I was cooking them. Made me decide just to pass up kids that age. They never shut up.”

“I’m guessing you have plenty of food. You’re not hungry.”

“Guilty. I’m cooking you for entertainment more than consumption, though I will eat you. I do eat what I kill. I’m a responsible hunter.”

“Good for you,” I said with as much enthusiasm as I could muster.

“Aren’t you upset about being on the spit?”

I thought she sounded a little disappointed.

“To be honest, I’m ready to go. I know I’ll never get back to my home.”

“You’re right about that,” she said. “The fairies are not going to help you. We wicked witches are kind compared to those fairies. Mean. Of course, they’re the only ones can actually send you back.”

“Are they near?”

“Nearer than I’d like,” she said.

“Personally, I’m glad to be roasted by such a beautiful witch.”

“I am said to be the most beautiful, wicked witch in the wood, you know. Many witches hate me for it. They say I’m stuck up and make up hurtful stories about me.”

“That is so unfair. Can you help it if you’re more beautiful than the others?”

“Exactly,” she said.

The fire was really burning my skin. I wanted to try a protective spell.

“I want to be a great dinner for you, but I’m afraid there’s a problem. I have to go to the bathroom.”

“What?”

“You know. I’m so sorry. This is very embarrassing. I don’t want to ruin your meal.”

“Are you sure you need to?” she asked.

“All that food and drink.”

“But it wasn’t real.”

“My body doesn’t know that.”

She shook her head. “This is disappointing.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“You promise to come right back?” she asked. “I will turn you into a pig if you try to run.”

“I give you my word,” I said.

She untied me. “No funny business.”

“No funny business,” I said

I threw a combination right cross-left jab, and she dropped like a stone. I tied her up and locked her in the bathroom of her cottage. I wrote a note.

Here is my word. I give it to you. The word is bamboozle. I’ll use it in a sentence. “I have bamboozled you because you were going to cook me and eat me.”

I ran off down the path. Strangely, the young witch reminded me a little of Olive. They were both very pretty. They were both witches and had all that witchy stuff hanging around. Many herbs and ingredients for potions and so on. Of course, the girl was an evil witch, and Olive was a good witch. Mostly. Technically, they were both murderers. Olive had poisoned the previous librarian because he was a terrible boyfriend to her and many women in Eden. She hadn’t meant to actually kill him. There were extenuating circumstances, but it had gotten in the way of our budding relationship at the time. That was very different from this witch, who lured victims to her cottage and then killed and ate them. Very different.

Still a little alike. Just a little.

I veered off into the woods because I heard the faintest song far off, and that song could have been the song of fairies or the soundtrack for Titanic. Either way, I had to see for myself.

Chapter Twelve

Igot lost in the haunted woods, which is the last place you want to get lost in. I came to a bridge over a swamp, and a troll crawled out from under it and said he’d need a troll toll.

I said, “Of course. Absolutely. What would you like?”

He said he would like my head for his collection of heads. He promised he would display it prominently as I was a handsome man. I thanked him but pointed out that I needed my head to go on living. He said he understood that it was a sacrifice (it was almost as if he’d taken a course in persuasive techniques for troll tolls) but he really wanted my head, and it seemed to him that, since he really wanted it and I’d walked across his bridge, I should pay the troll toll without a lot of grumbling.

“You’re right,” I said. “You’ve convinced me.”

I jumped off the bridge and ran through the swamp. It was hard running. The swamp was very swampy. The troll made the mistake of jumping in after me. He really wanted my head, I guess. He got stuck after about a dozen steps. You’d think he’d know better. It seemed trolls weren’t all that bright in this realm of the haunted forest.

By the time I got out of the swamp, I was muddy, sweaty, tired, and every muscle in my body ached. I collapsed under a tree and fell asleep. When I woke, a traditional wicked witch, pointy black hat, black dress, even the wart on her chin, was standing over me. She had a more serious face, but also a kinder one than the young, pretty witch.

“Run-in with the swamp monster?” she asked.

“The troll on the bridge,” I said. “There’s a swamp monster?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “The swamp monster is far worse than the troll. It has the body of a man but the head of an alligator. Teeth the size of a bear’s. The snapping jaw can tear a man in half with one bite. It’s very good at mimicking human voices crying for help. It prefers to eat good people, claiming they taste better.

“My own aunt told me a story of encountering the swamp monster one moonless night when she was out hunting for a hide-behind. If you can catch a hide-behind and hold it so it can’t move, it’s like having the best spy in the world. They watch everything everywhere, and somehow, they can communicate with each other over great distances.”

“Maybe they have cell phones.”

“What are these cell phones? Some kind of magic?”

“They’re little phones. You know, phones.”

She shook her head. More proof that things were different in this dimension.

“Magic,” I said. “They’re little magic boxes.”  

“Anyway,” she said. “She hoped to catch one and get information on a woodsman who’d disappeared. Instead, she was met by the swamp monster, who was carrying three teenagers it had lured into the swamp by claiming to know where the best party in the world was. It turned out his idea of the best party was vastly different than theirs. His idea was burying them up to their necks in swamp mud and drinking their blood. The swamp monster loves the taste of young human blood.

“My aunt hid from the swamp monster, who , couldn’t pursue her because he was carrying the three teenagers. She didn’t leave the swamp, though. She followed him back to his house. She saw there was a whole field of heads. They were long dead and in varying degrees of decay. My aunt risked her life to get the three teenagers away from the swamp monster. Two got away, but one was caught by the monster. After that, the swamp monster swore vengeance on my aunt. She had to stop going to the swamp. She sent me instead. Anyway, you were lucky not to run into the monster.”

“I guess I was,” I said,

I was exhausted. I wasn’t sure I had any more fight in me. I expected this witch of the haunted forest to try to do something terrible to me, like the wizards and the young witch.

“Whatever you’re going to do to me,” I said. “Go ahead.”

She smiled. She actually had a lovely smile. A genuine smile.

“One of those days? I’ve had them, too. Let’s go back to my cottage and see if I can help you find your way.”

What happened was what happened many times before I became the librarian of Eden, back when I had been traveling around the country by bus and hitchhiking.

I’d go through a bad day. I’d meet some bad people. I’d have some bad things done to me. But then someone, a stranger, would come along, and they would help me just because that was who they were, the kind of person who helped a stranger, the kind of person who wanted to help out. The kind person. There were always some of those out there, and sometimes when you had a run of bad luck and were meeting the others again and again, you forgot about them.

This witch, whose name was Carrie also warned me about the fairies. She said the fairies were heartless and would try to seduce me for their own purposes. She had had no first-hand experience with them, but there were many stories about the fairies, and most were warnings to stay away from them. I was determined, though, and she wished me luck.

Carrie fed me and gave me a bed for the night, and in the morning, she put me on the path to Fairyland, though she tried to warn me again from going.

But what choice did I have? Fairyland was my last chance to get back to my world, my home. I had to go.

Chapter Thirteen

It was late the next day when I reached Fairyland. The entrance was a bridge of rainbow colors with a statue on each side of beautiful young men with fine features and strong bodies and stood ten feet tall. They looked a lot like angels without the wings.

I left some gifts the witch had given me by the standing stone. Some food items and some shiny silver bracelets. She’d said the fairies appreciated gifts. Maybe it would gentle them toward me.

Across the bridge was a stone in the shape of an obelisk, about ten feet tall. It had writing on it. The writing was in fairy, but somehow I could read it. TURN BACK NOW OR ENTER FAIRYLAND RULED BY LORD OF THE SIDHE.

I’d read about the Sidhe in the library. These were a fairy tribe. A tribe of ancient, powerful beings that had retreated from the mortal world ages ago. I got that warning ache in my hands I got sometimes.

The sky above turned to a golden-purple glow and then dark in a matter of seconds. Stars hung impossibly low and large, like ornaments. There were two moons—one silver, one amber—regarding me from above like suspicious eyes.

The trees of the haunted forest persisted here. Twisted, large, thick, green. The land around me became hilly. There were fairy mounds, little homes built along the trail, which widened into a road. Lights flickered from windows, and smoke curled from hidden chimneys.

I came around a bend in the road, and on a hill was a palace made of white stone that shimmered in the moonlight. The air was sweet to smell. I could even taste the sweetness. Music drifted over me. A flute reminded me of a fond memory.

I came to a small village. The fairy people were tall and beautiful, with features too perfect to be mortals. Some had skin like polished alabaster, while others were almost amber. Their hair was uniformly long and white among both males and females. They had those famous pointy ears.

They smiled at me as I moved through the village. They all moved with grace. There was an open fire in the village square, and many of the fairies were gathered around it. There were tables of food and tables where fairies dressed in elegant clothes sat. Goblins—long thin creatures, with especially long arms and legs—served them. Carrie had warned me not to eat the food and not to accept gifts.  

Her other warnings were, “Don’t make promises. Don’t thank them directly. Above all, don’t give them your name.”

This place was my best hope, but I felt the danger. I could lose everything here. It was that kind of place.

Chapter Fourteen

Some of the fairies gathered around me. They spoke in a fairy language that was light and rhythmic. It was as if the words were dancing but not all doing the same dance. There were the classical movements of ballet but also tango and one young fairy, hip hop. I greeted them back in English. They looked as if my language was somehow distasteful. One stepped closer to me.

“English?” he asked.

“American,” I said.

He nodded. “English. Yes. You come from far away. We welcome you. Come and eat and drink with us. You will love it here. You hear the delicate sounds? Do they not make you want to dance? We will dance soon. You will join us.”

He motioned me over to the table where fairies in fine clothing were sitting. I had just sat down when all the fairies at all the tables jumped up. A group of even more elegantly dressed fairies came down the hill from the palace. The fairies of the village all bowed and curtsied.

The figures who led the procession wore crowns, a king and a queen. The fairy king stood nearly eight feet tall, with broad shoulders on a slender frame. His white hair was braided with gold threads and tiny white blooming flowers. His eyes were amber with vertical pupils like a cat’s, and his ears tapered to elegant points that peeked through his hair. He wore a cloak that appeared to be woven from autumn leaves. He rustled a little as he moved.

The queen beside him was almost his height, but slender. She had big eyes and high cheekbones and a regal air. Her hair was the silver of moonlight on water and fell to her waist. Her gown glittered. There were enchantments all around her.

Behind them trailed a procession of advisors—tall, elegant fairies, carrying staffs topped with crystals or living butterflies, their wings fluttering.

The assembled fairies bowed even lower as the procession passed, and I felt the distinct pressure to do the same. I inclined my head slightly, not wanting to seem disrespectful but remembering the witch’s warning about submission to fairy royalty.

“A traveler,” the king said, his voice like distant thunder. “How delightful. We so rarely receive visitors these days. Everyone is just staying at home.”

“Welcome to our realm, Traveler,” the queen added, her voice sharp and direct. “I am Queen Titania of the Twilight Court, and this is my consort, King Oberon.”

Either they were using names humans would recognize, or Shakespeare had gotten his inspiration from encounters with these fairies.

I carefully thanked them for their welcome, avoiding direct gratitude. There was a little more small talk before I told them why I had come to Fairyland.

The king asked me why I had left my realm in the first place. I explained that I did not know. It happened in my sleep.

“Maybe I was taken,” I said. “Brought here to this realm.”

“But you are running from something,” the queen said.

“No.”

“War?” One of the advisors, thin, with skin like birch bark and fingers too long for its hands, leaned forward eagerly. “There is always war.”

I told him that I had been in a battle, the Battle of Armageddon.

I expected shock or at least surprise, but instead, the king merely nodded as if I’d confirmed the weather was about to be rainy.

“Armageddon,” the king said. “It happens in so many dimensions, you know. The world destroyed by its most ambitious inhabitants.”

“Oh, yes,” the queen agreed, trailing a finger along my shoulder as she completed her circle around me. Her touch was cold as ice. “It has been happening for some time in thousands of realms. The universe yawns. It has seen the passing of millions of civilizations over billions of years. Humans will be no great loss.”

All in her court nodded in agreement.

“Humans survived,” I said. “Some humans.”

The king’s eyes narrowed. “I have little confidence in your ultimate survival. We must face facts. You are a violent species.”

“We’re flawed,” I admitted. “But we’re also capable of change. We can be better.”

“Of course,” the queen said. “But not in time. You must face facts, Traveler. The human race is doomed.”

“Yes indeed,” the king said. “Too bad. Too bad. But humans were doomed to self-destruction. Do you know why?”

“Our aggressive natures?” I guessed. Their argument for our extinction seemed to focus on our violence.

“They are very aggressive,” the queen said to the king.

“No, no,” the king said.

“Our disregard for the environment of our planet?” I asked.

“No, no,” the king said.

“Our cleverness when it comes to making weapons, especially those of mass destruction like nuclear ones?”

“Absolutely a killer,” the queen said, giving the king a sideways glance.

“None of the above,” the king said. “It is your inability to dance. Oh, some give it a go or occasionally learn a step or two, but most, even when they try, just shake around on the floor. No style. No real rhythm. It’s a pity because I’m told the creator of the universe had real hope for the humans. Real hope.”

I’d heard any number of reasons humans would not survive, but an inability to dance was a new one.

“The way of the universe,” the whole crowd said.

“Such a pity,” the king said.

“Enough talk,” the queen said. She clapped her hands. “It is time to dance! Music, if you please.”

As if from nowhere, four fairies appeared with instruments. One with something like a violin but with too many strings, a flute made from what appeared to be crystal, a harp of bone, and drums made of human skin. I did feel a distinct uneasiness when I saw the drums.

The fairies began to play a minuet that sounded like something from Mozart’s time. I thought the beat was slightly off, but I was no musician; perhaps I didn’t understand the music.

The queen extended her hand to me. “Will you honor me with a dance, Traveler?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t dance.”

Her smile froze. “But you must,” she said. “I would be so disappointed.”

“Yes, you must,” the king said.

The advisors all chimed in. “You must, you must.”

I didn’t move.

“It would be a great insult,” the king said.

“Oh, a terrible insult,” his advisors said.

“You must,” the king said.

“You must,” all his advisors said.

“Just one then,” I said.

The fairies cheered me.

The queen smiled. “Yes, of course, just one.”

The music grew louder, more insistent. The circle of fairies around us tightened slightly.

“Dance,” the king repeated.

“Dance,” all his advisors echoed.

The queen’s smile widened, and her teeth seemed just a bit sharper than before. She extended her hand again, and this time, I took it. Her skin was cool and smooth, like polished marble.

The crowd parted, forming a circle around us. The queen placed her left hand on my shoulder, and I tentatively put my right hand on her waist.

The music swelled, and suddenly, we were moving. She was moving me. I had never been a good dancer, and I didn’t even know the steps, but with the fairy queen leading, I found myself gliding across the soft earth beneath my feet.

“You see?” she said, her voice a whisper that somehow cut through the music. “Is this not magnificent?”

It was. The music flowed through me, and my body responded with a grace I had never possessed. Around us, other fairies joined the dance, pairs whirling in complex patterns.

I noticed humans among them now. Where had they come from? Their partners were fairies of all descriptions, but all in finery, all lords and ladies, I assumed.

As we danced, the queen began to speak again. She whispered, “You seek passage back to your world, Traveler. Perhaps we could arrange such a thing. We have certain abilities.”

“Thank you. If you could I would be—”

I stopped myself from using the word, thinking back to Carrie’s warnings.

The queen spun me in a graceful turn, and when I faced her again, her eyes had changed color and were now the deep purple of a ruined sky.

“We can open doors that others cannot,” she said. “What would you be if we did this for you?”

The dance grew faster, the music more complex. I felt lightheaded, but exhilarated. My feet moved perfectly in time. I knew I didn’t have control over them, but I was proud of my grace.

“Be?” I asked.

“You would be very—what’s the word?” she asked.

“I would be very—”

“Very what?”

The dance floor seemed to be expanding, the palace growing more distant with each turn. Or perhaps we were dancing farther away from it? The music followed us, growing wilder, less like a minuet and more like something ancient and primal.

Other dancers whirled around us, their faces blurring with speed.

“I think,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady, “that is one dance. I said one dance.”

This dance seemed to have become ten. Maybe more. I’d lost count.

The queen laughed, a sound like breaking glass. “But we’ve barely begun! The night is young, and there is so much more to it. So much more. And you want to go home, don’t you? You need to go home. And only I can help you.”

“You will help me?” I asked, trying to pull away.

She held on tight.

I felt my muscles begin to ache. I was tired. I wanted to sleep, but my feet kept moving. The music was inside me. That was how it felt.

“Going?” the king’s voice said from somewhere behind me. He was dancing with a short, stout woman who moved with amazing grace. Every dancer moved with amazing grace. “But you’ve only just arrived. And we so rarely have such interesting company.”

The dancers around us moved faster still, becoming streaks of color. Some of the humans I’d seen before were older than I’d thought. I was surprised they could dance so long.

“I need to get home,” I said to the queen.

“Of course. And if we could help you get home, what would you be?”

“Grateful,” I said. The word slipped out, but it felt more like it had been pushed by a force outside me.

“Yes, grateful,” she said.

“Grateful,” the king said.

“After we dance some more, yes? You wouldn’t want to stop dancing, would you?”

“And you’ll help me get home?”

“Of course,” the queen said. “After we dance and eat.”

“Just one more dance,” I said.

“Just one,” the queen said. “Dance.”

The music filled me. It was so powerful. I couldn’t imagine ever listening to music again without moving to it. I couldn’t imagine a life without dancing.

We ate after dancing. I was so hungry, I couldn’t help myself. I had to eat. The food tasted just as good as the young witch’s and just as empty afterward.

Then I was taken to the palace and a big room with a soft bed, and I fell asleep immediately and had no dreams. Not one.

Chapter Fifteen

“Wake up,” a voice whispered, shaking me. “Wake up, Traveler.”

I struggled to open my eyes. They felt gummed shut, heavy as lead. My entire body ached in unfamiliar ways, joints creaking in protest as I shifted on what felt like a thin, straw-filled mattress. I was in a dark room, my feet hanging off my bed. Where was the soft king size bed I fell asleep on?

“Just as I feared. You couldn’t resist a dance, could you?” The witch’s familiar face came into focus above me, her features tight with concern. She looked like she had when she’d given me directions to Fairyland, except now that I looked at her more clearly in the moonlight, she looked worried.

I tried to speak, but my throat was parched, my tongue thick and uncooperative. I just wanted to close my eyes again, to drift back into the beautiful dancing dreams.

“Oh no, you don’t,” the witch muttered, producing a small vial from within her robes. She uncorked it and poured a thick, foul-smelling liquid into my mouth before I could protest.

It tasted worse than it smelled, like rotting vegetation mixed with sulfur and something metallic. I gagged but swallowed reflexively. Almost immediately, a shock ran through my system. It was like I’d been handed a live wire. My eyes opened wide, and I sat bolt upright.

“What did you give me?” I gasped, my voice creaky as an old door. I hardly recognized it as my voice at all.

“A potion to cut through fairy enchantment,” she said. “Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, there’s nothing more I can do.”

As my senses returned, I became aware of our surroundings. We were in what appeared to be a long, low-ceilinged barracks. Rows of identical cots stretched in both directions, each occupied by a sleeping human. Their faces held the same rapturous expressions I’d seen on the dancers’ faces in my dreams. Some muttered and twitched.

“Look at you, look at what they’ve done to you,” the witch said, her voice softening, a sadness in her eyes.

She gestured toward the wall beside my cot, and a section of it rippled, becoming reflective like a mirror. I leaned forward, expecting to see my own familiar face—and recoiled in shock.

An old man stared back at me. My hair had turned completely white, my face a web of deep wrinkles, my eyes sunken into their sockets. I raised a trembling hand to my cheek, and the ancient man in the reflection did the same, his spotted hand shaking.

“How—” I began, my voice cracking.

“You’ve been dancing for a long time. It’s been five years since I saw you, but you look like you’ve aged at least fifty.”

I stared at my withered hands. I felt the aches and pain in my back and my joints.

Old man.

I remembered Olive and I talking about growing old disgracefully together. But I had done it alone.

“Most humans dance until they collapse and die,” she said, “or until the fairies empty them and send them into the woods for the wolves to eat. I only found you because a fairy friend came to visit and spoke of you, the traveler.”

“Empty me of what?” I asked.

“Life,” she said. “Youth. The Sidhe feed on it to remain ageless.”

I looked around at the sleeping humans. Many were as old as I looked and felt. Some older and some younger, but none were young.

“Five years, did you say? It’s been five years since I saw you?” It was like a terrible nightmare. How was it possible?

“Five years.” She was right about me looking fifty years older, too.

“I can’t remember.”

“It’s fairy magic,” she said.

“I can’t leave now,” I said. “I’ll never get home if I leave.”

“You don’t have much time left,” the witch said. “I’m sorry, but it’s true. Better to end your days in the woods than here dancing. I will take care of you.”

“That’s a kind offer,” I said. “but I have to get to my home. I can’t die here.”

“They’ll never let you leave.”

“I have to find a way.”

She was quiet, studying me.

“It’s probably suicidal,” she said with a deep sigh, “but if you can capture the queen, you might have a chance. She is the only one they cannot lose.”

“Capture her how?”

She shrugged. “No idea. You need a plan.”

“I don’t need a plan. I need focus and fight and daring.”

The witch reached into her robes and pulled out a slender dagger. Its blade was a dull gray metal, and its hilt was wrapped in what looked like dried vines.

“Cold iron,” she explained as she handed it to me. “One of the few things that can truly harm the Sidhe. The handle is bound with rowan wood. If you can get the blade to her throat, you might have a chance. The wood will weaken her. It is the full moon feast, as it is nearly every night here. All the courts will gather for dancing. The queen will be there.” She glanced nervously toward the door. “I can’t help you beyond this. If they discover my involvement, they’ll hunt me down.”

“I understand,” I said. “Thank you.”

I was feeling more myself, but still a long way from it. Five years. How could I have spent five years here?

The witch was already fading, becoming transparent. “If you are lucky enough to get hold of her, don’t let go, no matter what she becomes.”

“What do you mean what she becomes?’”

But the witch was gone, leaving me alone with the sleeping dancers and a dagger that suddenly seemed woefully inadequate. I was weak. I could feel the pull of sleep. Not human sleep, but fairy sleep. I was a sleepwalker.

Dusk was turning to darkness. I tried to do some pushups to gauge how much strength I still had. Not much. I practiced moving with my aged body, learning its limitations. There were a lot of them. I was not only weak, but slow. It hurt to move at all. I hid the dagger in my sleeve, secured by a strip torn from my blanket. I doubted my ability to throw a punch that could do harm to an attacker.

But then I heard music from what seemed both far away and near, and it flowed through me, waking me like an accelerant to ashy coals. The music revived me, old as I was.

When attendants—the long-limbed goblins with bulging eyes—came to wake the sleepers for the feast, I was back in my bed. They called to me, and like the others, I answered by getting out of bed and joining the shuffling procession toward the dance. I kept my head down, mimicking the blank-eyed stare of my fellow captives. The goblins paid me no special attention; one more addled human among many was hardly worth noticing.

We were led to a vast clearing I hadn’t seen before. That wasn’t quite right. It was familiar, but I couldn’t remember being there. Massive tables formed a U-shape, filled with foods of all kinds but mostly sweet cakes and pastries and cookies and pies and chocolate. At the head table the king and queen sat on thrones of twisted branches, their court arrayed around them.

Musicians were already playing, their strange instruments creating melodies that tugged at my feet, urging them to move. I fought the compulsion, grounding myself by pressing my thumb gently against the dagger edge, trying to create pain to keep my mind clear.

I joined the other humans at the lowest tables, accepting the plate of food set before me but not eating, remembering the witch’s earlier warnings. All around me, my companions ate mechanically, their eyes glazed, some of them humming along with the music. I pretended to eat, copying the looks of my companions, but moved my food to the plates of a man to my left and a woman to my right.

As the feast progressed, I watched the patterns of movement around the clearing. Guards were stationed at regular intervals—tall fairies with armor made of wood. The king and queen occasionally left their thrones to mingle, always surrounded by attendants.

When the tables were cleared away for dancing, I made my move. I joined the throng of humans being led to the dance floor, a vast circle marked by glowing mushrooms. The music changed, becoming more insistent, and the dancers began to pair up.

Several fairy ladies approached me, their beauty otherworldly. One, with skin like pale jade and hair that floated as if underwater, extended her hand imperiously.

“Dance, human,” she commanded, her voice like crystal chimes. “I will be the one to dance you to your death.”

She seemed pleased at the thought. I didn’t share her enthusiasm.

I bowed awkwardly, my old joints protesting. “Forgive me, my lady. I am too weary for such vigor.”

Her eyes flashed with annoyance, but before she could insist, another fairy claimed her attention. I repeated this performance several times, always deferential, always pleading my age and infirmity. Each refusal was harder than the last, the music worming its way into my mind, my feet aching to move in time to it.

Finally, I saw my opportunity. The queen had risen from her throne and was circling the dance floor, selecting partners seemingly at random. With each dance, her partner aged while she grew more radiant, more vital.

I shuffled forward, positioning myself in her path. As she approached, I dropped to one knee, my old bones protesting the sudden movement.

“Your Majesty,” I said, my voice cracking appropriately. “I have watched you all evening, entranced by your beauty. Before I die—and surely that cannot be far off—I beg the honor of a dance with the most beautiful woman in all the lands I’ve visited.”

Her eyes, now the deep violet of sunset, regarded me with amused contempt. “You are old, human. What pleasure could I take in dancing with one already so drained?”

I bowed my head lower. “Even the dregs of wine contain some sweetness, Majesty. And I would die happy, knowing I had held perfection in my arms once more.”

Flattery, I had observed, was the fairies’ greatest weakness. The queen’s lips curved into a smile.

“Very well, human. One dance, before you return to your final rest.”

She extended her hand, and I took it, rising slowly to my feet. Around us, the fairy court murmured in surprise. The queen rarely chose a partner like me. I knew that was what they were saying.

The musicians began a new melody, slower and more stately than before. The queen placed her hand on my shoulder, and I put mine at her waist, feeling the otherworldly coolness of her even through her gown.

She stepped forward, and I fought with everything in me not to follow. My foot remained planted on the ground.

The queen’s face registered surprise, then annoyance.  “Dance,” she commanded, her voice resonating with power.

I felt the compulsion like a physical force but gripped the dagger in my sleeve, focusing on the cold burn of iron against my skin.

“I said dance!” she hissed, her beautiful face twisting with anger.

In a movement faster than my aged body should have been capable of, I moved behind her, slipping the dagger from my sleeve and pressing it against her throat.

The music stopped abruptly. The entire clearing froze, hundreds of faces turning toward us in shock.

“Release her!” the king roared, rising from his throne, his hand going to a sword at his belt.

“She’ll be dead before you can draw your sword,” I said, pressing the blade just enough to draw a single drop of blood. It welled up, crimson against her alabaster skin, then trailed down her neck to stain the collar of her gown.

A collective gasp rose from the assembled fairies. Many stepped back, their faces furious.

“I order you to let her go,” the king demanded, his voice tight with rage.

“I want to go home,” I said, “to my Eden.”

The queen laughed, the sound vibrating against the dagger at her throat. “You would threaten a queen of the Sidhe and expect to live.”

“It’s no threat,” I said, tightening my grip as she tried to shift in my arms. “You will die. The dagger is made of cold iron. You can feel it, can’t you? It burns your throat.”

“You dare,” she hissed.

I pressed it again, and this time, three drops of her blood fell on my hand. It was like three hard slaps.

More gasps. The king promised me death.

“After she dies,” I said. “This land will wither without her. Anyway, I’m near death. Send me home or send me to my death. And send your whole kingdom with me.”

I was making this up as I went along. I was counting on the likelihood that no queen had died for a long, long time. No one could know what might happen.

The king’s face was red and swollen with anger. “Start the music,” he commanded the musicians. “He cannot resist forever.”

The first notes began, and I felt the queen smile. I pressed the dagger harder, cutting her. The queen cried out, startled by pain. She tried to twist free, but I held her tight.

The king waved his hand, and the music stopped.

“Release me, and I will open the way,” the queen said.

“Open the way first. I’ll release you.”

The queen raised her hand, and the air before us shimmered, then split open like a wound. Through it, I could see the haunted forest. Maybe I was just wishing it to be my haunted forest, but it looked familiar in a way nothing had in this dimension.

I felt the portal tugging at me. I kept my grip on the queen, the dagger steady at her throat, and backed up to the portal.

“Let me go,” the queen screamed.

As I fell back through the opening, I shoved her. I saw her raise her arm in fury, but before she could cast a spell, I tumbled through darkness, the witch’s dagger still clutched in my hand. A second later, I slammed against the hard earth of the forest floor. I lay there, gasping for air, smelling the black earth beneath me.

Chapter Sixteen

Istood up slowly. I was dizzy. I staggered into a tree and snapped a branch, trying to catch myself before I fell.

“You buffoon,” the tree said.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Sorry,” the tree mocked. “You’re sorry. How would you feel if I pulled off one of your fingers?”

“I did say I was sorry.”

“Humans. You think a word can change things. You owe me. I’d like to be paid compensation.”

“Like what?” I said.

“There’s a fertilizer you can get off the mountain. It’s called Angel Food. Get that.”

“Sorry,” I said.

As I walked away, he shouted a stream of curses after me. I enjoyed them. A talking tree. I was back, back in my haunted forest.  I noticed I wasn’t walking in the way I’d walked to the dance in Fairyland. Not small steps. Not feeling pain in every step. I felt less tired.

I looked down at my hands and saw they were no longer wrinkled and spotted with age. A deep relief pulsed through me. I seemed young again. Maybe it was the queen’s drops of blood that had trickled down on my hand or maybe it was getting back to my realm. Whatever it was, I felt light on my feet. But I most definitely, most assuredly, did not feel like dancing.

I walked faster through the forest. I imagined Eden. I imagined Olive, Fluffy, Rip and the others there, waiting for me. I used my third eye to scan the woods around me. I saw no threats.

I found a trail. I didn’t think I’d been on it before, but I was pretty sure it was going in the direction of Eden. I came to a stream, and I knew it was Mountain Stream. I was down from Eden. As long as I kept by the stream climbing up the mountain, I was confident I’d get home.

I was thirsty and stopped to drink. A fish swam up close. It was a largemouth bass, which I called a loudmouth bass because it always shouted when it spoke.

“Antichrist, aren’t you?” the loudmouth bass shouted. “You’re in a flood of trouble.”

“Am I?” I asked. “How so?”

“They’re looking for you.”

“The townspeople of Eden?”

“No.”

“Who then?”

“Just them. You know who.”

I didn’t, but I was more concerned about Eden. “Everyone in Eden is all right, though?”

“Not my place. I’m a fish in a mountain stream. What do I know about humans except they waste all their good fortune and pollute the world? Now, if this stream carries me downstream, I will swim into water filled with poison from your bombs. Good going, humans.”

He shouted something before he disappeared around a bend. The loudmouth bass told me to have sexual intercourse with myself, using the punchier profanity loudmouth bass were known for.

So good to be back in the haunted woods.

He wasn’t wrong, though. We had messed up the world pretty badly.

I kept walking down the trail, and after about an hour, the trees began to thin, and I could see the bridge and on the other side Eden. I stopped and stared at it, looking for some sign of life. I was having a moment of hope and fear at the same time when I was jumped and slammed to the ground.

Chapter Seventeen

The attacker was heavy, and I was completely helpless, pinned to the ground. Its teeth flashed in the faint light of dusk. They looked the size of railroad ties. I felt something wet on my face. I thought it might be blood. But then I thought that it didn’t feel thick or sticky enough for blood. Spittle. The wet was coming from a giant tongue.

“Fluffy!” I shouted.

Which got me more licks. I was drowning in licks and also being smothered by his four hundred-plus pounds of hellhound.

He was making noises that were somewhere between whines and growls. His licks were frantic. I was wet, as if I’d dunked my head in the stream.

“It’s good to see you too, boy,” I said, trying to hold him back and not having much effect.

“Missed you, missed you, yes, I did. I did. I did.”

He was a hellhound. He weighed over four hundred pounds. He had magical genes. He could walk on fire. Run as fast as a speeding train. Jump over a ten-foot wall. Shoot bursts of energy. Breathe fire. He was also, possibly, a little over-exuberant with greetings.

“Okay,” I said, petting him. “Good boy. You’re a good boy.”

“Missed you, missed you. Missed you so much. Missed you. Food? Stinky meat? Treat? Missed you so much.”

“I missed you, too. What happened in Eden? Is everyone all right.”

He shook his head vigorously. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.”

“What happened?”

He shook his head. “Look for you. Look for you everywhere. Even look for you here in the wood. Then look for them. No, no, no, no, no, no.”

“You went to look for me?” I asked.

“And monkeys and squirrels. Hungry.”

“You didn’t find me.”

“No, no, no, no. Went back to Eden.”

“Everyone was gone?”

“Gone.”

“Gone where?”

“Gone,” he said.

“Let’s go have a look around.”

“Stinky, stinky meat?” he asked.

“Afraid not.”

“Hungry. So hungry. No monkeys today. No, nothing. Time to piddle.” He went over to a tree and watered it vigorously. “Hungry,” he said when he finished.

“We’ll find something for you,” I said. “I missed you, boy.”

“Missed you.” He leaned his head against my shoulder. He kept it there even when I started walking. He pressed against me and knocked me off the path into a tree.

“Sorry,” he said.

The tree said nothing.

I saw Eden from the bridge. It looked quiet, but we were still too far away to see much. We crossed the bridge over Mountain Stream and into Eden. I told Fluffy to scout the town for townspeople. I headed straight for the town square.

Like in the other dimension, there was no sign of a battle. There were no bodies lying in the streets, no broken windows, nothing disturbed. But there were also no people. When I got to the square, I looked around to see if anything had changed. It had been only a few days ago to me since I’d looked in the other dimension at the square, but maybe it had been five years. And how long had I slept before that? I had no clear sense of time.

There was one building missing. It was one that wasn’t always in Eden. Both the church and the hotel, since my short time in Eden, had appeared and disappeared irregularly. It was the hotel that was missing. That could be how everyone was moved out of Eden. The hotel was large enough to hold everyone.

If it had been used to move them, who had used it? Maybe by the people of Eden, who were escaping some threat of attack or invasion. But if that was true, they would have come back by now. Or maybe by the invader who took them somewhere else.

Maybe it was The Harvester. He could have tricked us and then could have come back to reap the town, or he could have sent a force of humans, angels, and demons to get the valuable spark the supernaturals of Eden possessed.

Had I been played? Had we been played? The thought was like a dagger in my back.

Or maybe some group of angels or demons had come to escape the flatlands. If they could no longer get into heaven or hell, the magic mountain might be where they’d come. If that was so, why weren’t they still in town?

Maybe I needed to start with where they weren’t. Could they be in the haunted forest? The hotel was a possibility, but if the hotel hadn’t taken them, they would have had to be marched some place. That meant the haunted forest. I had no desire to go back into the forest. In fact just thinking about it gave me a chill.

But where else could I look?

Chapter Eighteen

Ishouted Fluffy’s name as I walked back toward the library. He came running from town. I’d forgotten how beautiful he was when he ran. No doubt some people might say terrifying, particularly if he was running toward that person. But for me, I loved watching him run.

He ran up the stairs and beat me to the door. We went inside. The library felt empty. It felt as empty as the library in the other dimension. I could feel the magical power beating in it like a heartbeat. Sometimes it seemed like it was alive.

“Bat!” I shouted to the library ghost.

I kept my metaphorical fingers crossed because if he showed up, I’d at least know I was back in my dimension.

A second later, he appeared. Bat Masterson had been a ghost for a long time, though he had not been a ghost in the library of Eden for a long time. He had been a ghost in New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Denver, and a few places in between. He’d wandered all over the country when he was alive, and he did the same when he was dead. I thought he died in the early 1900s.

Bat Masterson had been dapper in life and was a dapper ghost, who wore a neatly tailored suit, a bowler hat, and carried a gold-headed cane. He’d lived on the frontier and had survived many dangerous situations. Now he lived in the Eden library. I wasn’t sure why. I did know ghosts who managed to escape being taken by Death usually felt a strong need to stay and finish something unfinished. But if they stayed too long, they usually became monsters. Bat had avoided this fate somehow.

“Can you tell me what happened here?” I asked.

“Yes and no,” he said. “But first, I’d like to know where you’ve been.”

I told him.

“And you woke up in this other dimension how long ago?”

“It’s not clear,” I said. “My time in Fairyland is fuzzy, too.”

“Five years,” he said. “Armageddon was five years ago.”

I swore. I did a lot of swearing. But then I remembered how old I’d been not very long ago: seventy or eighty. I could have lost a lot more years than five.

“Where are they, Bat?”

“I don’t know. I was locked in one of the library rooms when they were taken. I know that much. They didn’t go willingly. I heard screams and gunshots, and I smelled magic thick as gunpowder on a battlefield.”

“And when you got out of that room, they were gone?”

“Yes.”

“Was the hotel gone?”

“I couldn’t say. My guess is they were taken to the hotel, but it is only a guess. I have been able to wander the town since they were taken, but I’ve found no signs of a struggle. Someone or something must have cleaned things up.”

“Who locked you in the room?”

“I don’t know.”

I thought it could have been the library. It might lock him up to keep him from being destroyed by whoever kidnapped the living.

“Who cleaned up?”

“I don’t know. No one has come here since that day, though. I know that.”

“And you’ve had no communication with anyone?”

“None.”

“So you don’t know what’s going on?”

“I’ve been able to listen in a little. The ghostbusters built a listening device. I’ve been able to hear some of the conversations from the surface.”

“How many survived?” I asked.

“No one knows. I think a significant number, though. The first couple of years there were some living underground in bunkers. These were hastily made. The richer countries, like America, got a large population underground. Those who remained on the surface didn’t do well. Many died. Many are sick. There are stories about some being turned into monsters. Anyway, most stayed down there for four years until the radiation levels were believed to be under control. Angels working with human scientists were able to find a way to clear the air.”

“You heard nothing about Olive, or the others?”

“No,” he said.

“The gates of heaven and hell are open again?”

“No,” he said.

“So they’re down on the surface? Angels and demons?”

Bat nodded. “From what I’ve heard on the radio, the angels, demons, and supernaturals are the new superpowers. The angels are spread out. They like islands the best. Tropical islands. Places where they can lie about and drink sweet drinks. Lucifer is as he was before the fall. He established the Infernal Commonwealth across central and South America and Texas. His palace is in West Texas. He rules from there. They trade with anyone, deal in anything. Sin is just another commodity to them now. But cross them, break a deal, and they’re quick to punish. They’re more like the drug cartels used to be. The supernaturals control North America except for Texas. They call their empire The Haven. They’ve taken in humans with abilities and even some angels and demons. Ordinaries are now the underclass. Mostly servants. But some say many of them have gone missing.”

“The Harvester didn’t come back then?” I said, still thinking he might have something to do with whatever happened in Eden.

“No. As far as I know, no.”

Fluffy nudged my hand. He probably sensed my anger and distress.

“I’m going to find them,” I said. “Olive and Rip and all of them.”

“They aren’t on the mountain,” Bat said.

“I’ll find them. If I have to go to the flatlands, I will. Whatever it takes.”

Fluffy licked my hand. “Like squirrels,” he said.

He was trying to cheer me up. I played along.

“What is it you like about squirrels?” I asked.

“Taste like chicken,” he said. He sniggered. He sniggered a lot.

So that was that. On the bright side, I wasn’t going back into the haunted forest, at least not today. On the dark side, I was going down to the flatlands, the surface of the Earth, which had gone through an apocalypse since I was last there. Billions of dead. Maybe inhabited monsters and radiation. Almost certainly a violent, somewhat lawless, and dangerous place, especially for me.

But this was my best bet of finding them. I would take the long shot over no shot.

Chapter Nineteen

Fluffy and I went up to the second floor. I wanted to know what I might need to take with me to the flatlands. I went up the stairs thinking that what I needed was a room that was filled with post-apocalyptic information. I came to the end of the hallway and written in bold on a door was The End of the World Room. That happened. Rooms appeared and disappeared. The library’s rooms frequently changed, sometimes according to what I wanted.

One of the perks of being the librarian.

I went into the room. It was a comfortable room. Four walls of books. High ceiling. Window that looked out over the stream. Reading lamp and wingback chair in the corner. A reading table with a small lamp at the center of the room.

I looked around a little until I saw a book glowing on the far end of the bookcase. The title was The Habits That Will Help You Cope With The End of The World. That seemed promising. I was already having trouble coping. I took the chair over to the table and clicked on the reading lamp, and sat down. I turned to the first pages.

Habit 1: Put First Things First (Oxygen, Water, Food, Wi-Fi). Make sure you have things that you can’t live without, which could result in you being able to not live at all. This sounds sensible, but you would be surprised how many people think robbing a bank is a good idea. Paper money will probably be either devalued or completely worthless, like the Confederacy’s money when the South lost the Civil War.

Habit 2: Be Proactively Paranoid. Ordinary people react to situations, which can lead to death. Survivors anticipate. Example: When your neighbors dismissed blood-red rain as “probably pollution,” you were already packing go-bags and memorizing exorcism rituals in ancient languages. Remember: it’s not paranoia if interdimensional entities really are coming to devour your soul. And let’s not forget our own ever unpopular demons and monsters who will devour you in other ways. Blood-red rain is a clear sign of bad things to come. RUN.

Habit 3: Begin With the End in Mind (Literally). Visualize your ideal apocalypse outcome. Write your End of Days’ mission statement and review it daily between scavenging runs. Distribute it among friends and allies. Where do you want to be in ten years?

Habit 4: Think Win-Win (Or At Least Don’t Die-Die). Keep a positive attitude and try to convince others to join you. However, do not be afraid to kill anyone who threatens you. Better to kill first and ask questions later than to die first and be unable to ask any questions ever. Communication breakdowns cause eighty-seven percent of post-apocalyptic faction wars. Practice empathetic listening with mutants, demons, and cannibals. When negotiating, try reflective statements: “What I’m hearing is that you want to kill, possibly torture, and take everything we have. But this is short term, limited thinking. We could help you survive if we are alive, and we may have hidden supplies. You will never find it if you kill us.” Works every time, and if it doesn’t, you’ll be dead and won’t have to concern yourself with failure.

Habit 6: Sharpen the Sword and the Axe, and Your Wits. You cannot afford to take a day off and relax. You can never relax in this new world. Dangers will come to you. They will not wait for you to come to them. You must be ever alert and ready.

All of these were good points. I would sharpen the sword on the way to the Cadillac Deville.

I put the book back, and Fluffy and I went downstairs. On the way down, Fluffy reminded me he was hungry.

“Need to feed?” I asked, teasing. Big mistake. Sometimes Fluffy was like a parrot.

“Need to feed,” he said. “Need to feed. Need to feed.”

I got Fluffy, and we went over to Raphael’s store to get some plastic bottles to fill up in the stream so we’d have clean water. I got some canned food on the shelf that I hoped was still good: tuna fish, beans, and mixed fruit.

“Need to feed,” Fluffy reminded me, in case I’d forgotten in the last sixty seconds.

I fed Fluffy some food from a big white bag with “Hellhound” written in red letters. Gods knew where or when Raphael had gotten the bag, but when your supplier was from a supernatural, family-run grocery with access to a landing field in the haunted forest, you could get just about anything. At least before Armageddon.

Fluffy ate all the food in the big white bag. It was a fifty-pound bag, so I hoped it would hold him for a while. We went to the mountain stream, and I filled the water bottles. There were no messages, cryptic or otherwise, from the fish. Turkey vultures circled high in the sky. As signs went, not a particularly good one. We went back to the library and to my apartment downstairs. My bedroom had the secret door to the Collection of Curiosities, which spread out over several caves.

We went through it and into the first chamber. I took the sword from its place with other famous weapons. I ran my finger along the blade and knew it didn’t need sharpening. As a rule, magic swords didn’t. Fluffy and I walked to the Cadillac Deville about four chambers down.

I sat on the driver's side, and Fluffy sat on the passenger’s. He gave me a look that said, “Roll down the window, please, please.” But besides being a classic Caddy, the Cadillac Deville was a time machine. Riding in a time machine with the window rolled down seemed unwise. I ignored Fluffy.

I didn’t use it to travel through time much. I mostly used it to get down to the flatlands because it was my only form of transportation (though I had relied on a time cat and my brother to use their teleportation talents to get me down to the surface and other places occasionally) out of Eden and to what I now believed was another dimension. I usually turned the controls to take me back a minute or two in time, focusing on the place. This kept me from the danger of disrupting the timeline.

However, as I sat in the car, I considered going back in time five years and wiping away my time in Fairyland.

“Can you send me back to the night we returned to Eden after Armageddon when Olive and I were in bed?” I asked the Cadillac Deville.

“Normally, I would say no problemo, man,” the Cadillac Deville said. “But it’s a little more iffy because, you know, the whole transformation of Earth. But I could totally try.”

The Cadillac Deville was invented by a hippie in the 1960s, so its language was always a little odd.

“What are the chances of success?”

“About 92.1111111 percent.”

“That’s pretty good. What are the chances I could seriously transform the timeline?”

“Oddly, about 92.1111111 percent.”

Who could say if I would change it for better or worse? No one. That was the problem. A whole slew of mights hit me right in the face. I couldn’t know.

“Just set it for a minute in the past,” I said. “Destination, Austin, Texas. Same landing place as last time.”

“You’re the man,” the Cadillac Deville said.

A second later, we were flying through time and space.

Chapter Twenty

We landed on what used to be the intersection of 2244 and 360. The Cadillac Deville settled onto cracked asphalt with a crunch of broken glass and rusted metal beneath its tires. I flipped to manual drive. I stayed still for a moment, taking in the transformed landscape before taking my foot off the brakes.

Fluffy, sitting in the passenger seat next to me, made a low growl as he looked around.

I could see pretty far. Though it was near sunset, the air thickened with a reddish tint, the town was visible. What had once been a busy intersection in West Austin was now barely recognizable. The roads remained—more or less—but they had cracks running through them and were buckled. I could see that 360 had a whole section—not in the direction I was going fortunately—blown away. Weeds were pushing up in places.

Bulldozers and other road equipment were parked on the side of the road. The busted-up cars had been shoved to either side, creating eerie metal walls that flanked the roadway. Some vehicles had been stripped for parts, leaving behind only their frames, like the carcasses of great mechanical beasts. Others remained almost intact, their bodies largely whole, but the windows shattered and cracked.

“This is no road for me,” the Cadillac Deville muttered. “Do you mind if I make it a bit less bumpy?”

The sky above was an unsettling deep gray. Particles of ash floated in the air. I flipped the switch off manual control. This was definitely a hazardous air quality day. I had the feeling there had been a string of them.

“I don’t mind,” I said. “Just get us to SBI Headquarters.”

I’d worked for the Supernatural Bureau of Investigation years ago as a freelancer. They offered me a permanent position as an agent, but I turned them down. I liked the freedom of being on my own. I guess I should like where I was now by that standard. I didn’t.

“I have a route, man,” the Cadillac Deville said.

The Cadillac Deville lifted off the ground. I hadn’t used this feature down in the flatlands much before. I was too worried about exposing the supernatural world to the ordinaries. I didn’t think that was much of a worry anymore with angels, demons, and supernaturals out in the open.

“That’s better,” the Cadillac Deville said.

“That is better,” I admitted. “Go through downtown, then down South Congress. I want to have a look around before we get to the headquarters.”

As we flew east, I could see downtown Austin in the distance. The skyline I remembered was gone, replaced by a jagged silhouette of partially collapsed buildings. Some of the taller structures still stood, though many were missing windows or entire sections. One skyscraper leaned precariously against another. The Frost Bank Tower—once so distinctive with its owl-like appearance—was now just a hollow framework, its glass blown out, leaving a skeleton reaching toward the sky.

We turned onto MoPac, which was in slightly better condition than 360 had been. The Deville landed and drove on the pavement. Here, the cleared path was wider, and there were crude markers along the roadside—symbols painted on sheets of metal mounted on posts. I didn’t recognize their meanings, but they seemed to be messages of some kind. There were more road repair trucks and equipment like bulldozers to make new roads.

The Colorado River gleamed oddly as we drove over it, its waters an unnatural orange. Along its banks, I could see makeshift living. Shacks and structures thrown together and made of a mix of materials. Plastic, metal, planks, tree limbs haphazardly assembled into living spaces. It looked third world. All in the shadow of what had not very long ago been a thriving city.

There were plants the size of trees growing down along the river. I saw something swimming in the water. It was as large as a hippopotamus.

“What is that?” I asked the Deville.

“Rat,” the Deville said. “I’m picking up information as we move toward our destination. Some creatures have been transformed by the fallout. Radiation.”

As we approached what had once been downtown, I began to see signs of habitation. More people. More construction. Makeovers of some small businesses, bars, and restaurants. I saw dead animals pulled into the gutter. A six-legged creature that resembled a coyote ran across the road ahead of us. Scavenger birds circled threateningly.

What had been a commercial corridor was now a strange mixture of ruin and renewal. Some buildings had collapsed entirely, leaving only piles of rubble. Others remained standing but were repurposed—windows covered with scavenged materials, rooftops sprouting crude antenna arrays. There were what appeared to be soldier patrols here and there and army trucks. Whose army?

We came to a place between buildings where people had established what looked like a marketplace. Stalls made from scrap metal, wood, and fabric lined the street. Figures moved among them, exchanging goods I couldn’t identify from this distance.

As we approached, several of them turned to stare at the Cadillac.

South Congress Avenue itself was almost unrecognizable. The quirky shops and restaurants that had defined the area were gone, replaced by a hodgepodge of structures that served more practical purposes. There were open lots with tents on them. Barracks had been set up in one corner.

It had happened. The crack-up. The breakdown. I thought back to before I’d found Eden, how during COVID, in the early days, people had seen a glimpse of this. After it passed, looking back, most wrote that time off as mostly an inconvenience. But in the early days, people felt it. Just how fragile our great civilization was, how it might shatter in a few weeks if the wrong few weeks came along. Now it had.

We drove past the motel that had once been SBI Headquarters for this region. It had been hidden underground. Now it was a tower. It was the tallest building on South Congress. Ten stories, at least. At its top, a blue light pulsed steadily, visible even in the daytime.

It reminded me of the wizards’ tower I had nearly died in.

I could see the area around it was heavily fortified. A wall about fifteen feet high encircled it, topped with what might have been electrified wire or something worse. Guards patrolled the perimeter, carrying weapons that looked like a hybrid of pre-war firearms and new weapons. Those weapons, I was pretty sure, had a magical component.

“Not hiding anymore,” I said to Fluffy, who pressed his massive head against my shoulder in response.

He was made uneasy by this new world, and I was, too.

The Cadillac Deville slowed as we approached the main gate in the wall. The Deville said, “End of the line, dude. Unless you’ve got some kind of plan for getting past those guards.”

As I looked at the pulsing blue light atop the tower and the armed figures patrolling, I got a distinct message. I was no longer welcome at the SBI. This tower was made to show the world who held the power. The king and his council would be in control, and I knew they would arrest me the first chance they got. If I went in, I’d never get out.

If Olive and the others were in there, I’d need to find a way in, but I sure wasn’t going to walk through the front door.

Chapter Twenty-One

Ithought what I’d seen of Austin was a breakdown of society. Obviously, there had been some bombing of the city and nuclear explosions near enough that radiation had rained down on it. But Austin seemed to have been spared a direct hit. After all, there weren’t enough nuclear weapons in the world to hit every city. On the other hand, the rubble from explosions I’d seen made me think there had been bombing, maybe from drones, after the nukes. That was a sign that things were not going to be fixed quickly and that there were still plenty of bombs that might be used.

I needed to find Olive and the others and get back to Eden.

There was a club where I used to go down near the river when I had stayed in Austin and was doing work for the Supernatural Bureau of Investigation. I wondered if it was still there. It had survived Austin’s growth explosion and real estate frenzy, fueled by rich Californians and Chinese businesses buying up everything for exorbitant prices. If any place could survive Armageddon, I thought it could. I pulled up. The Continental Club.

“Wait here in the car,” I told Fluffy, who whined with displeasure. “I won’t be long.”

“Go with,” Fluffy said. “Go with.”

“It has a sign that says no hellhounds,” I lied.

Fluffy couldn’t read. “No go?”

“No go,” I said, shaking my head.

I approached the familiar entrance, its neon sign flickering weakly but stubbornly after all these years. The door was reinforced now, metal plates bolted over the original wood, with a small viewing slot. It slid open when I banged on the door.

A pair of eyes scrutinized me. “You armed?”

“Just a sword,” I said.

The door opened.

A big guy stood at the door. Another with a shotgun stood behind him. I surrendered my sword reluctantly. Another guy behind the guy with the shotgun said I could pick it up when I was ready to go.

Inside, the Continental Club was somewhat recognizable, though I hadn’t been in town for a long time. The original red walls remained. The stage at the far end was still there, illuminated by spotlights that appeared to be powered by a generator humming loudly in the background. My guess was the electricity grid was a bit patchy and unreliable.

A three-piece band played on the stage—a woman with a fiddle, a man with what looked like an electric guitar modified with extra strings, and another man behind a drum set. They were playing the blues.

The tables and booths were still arranged roughly as I remembered, though many had been repaired with whatever materials were available—metal patches, pieces of other furniture, even what looked like car parts. The ceiling was lower than I recalled, draped with faded fabrics that might have been intended to catch anything that fell away from the roof.

The crowd was small. A group of men in patchwork leather armor occupied one corner, drinking from dented metal cups. Two women with elaborate facial tattoos sat at a table near the stage. A solitary figure in a hooded robe nursed a drink at the far end of the bar. There was a loud table of demons next to him. They were telling war stories, claiming they’d been in the battle of Armageddon. I thought I recognized one of them from somewhere (three eyes made him distinctive) but I wasn’t sure.

I made my way to the bar. Behind it stood a woman with gray-streaked hair in pigtails, her face lined, but her eyes sharp and alert. She wore what might once have been a Continental Club T-shirt, now so faded and patched that the original design was barely visible.

“What can I get you?” she asked, wiping a relatively clean glass with a relatively clean rag.

“I’m hoping you know a guy I’m looking for,” I said. “Carlos. Hawaiian guy. Enormous. Has long hair.”

She leaned over. “Got a last name?”

“Probably, but I’ve never heard it. He’s like one of those one-name movie or pop music stars.”

She studied me for a long moment. Her expression changed. “You look familiar. Been here before? Like, way before?”

“It’s been a while.”

“I know you. I’ve seen you someplace. I’ve—wait. You’re him. But you’re dead. They said you were dead. Right after the nukes fell.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m not,” I said.

She took a few steps back. “The librarian. The antichrist.” She glanced around quickly, then lowered her voice. I saw she had a faint supernatural ability. Possibly a weak reader.

“Former antichrist,” I said.

“I recognize you from the reward posters the King’s Council has posted. Do you know how much they’re offering? You’re worth a fortune.”

“Are you looking to collect?”

“Not me,” she said. She wasn’t entirely convincing, though.

“Carlos and I are old friends,” I said. “I need to talk to him.”

This was a slight exaggeration. He’d tried to kill me once, and I had broken his arm. Later, he became someone who sold me information.

“Carlos doesn’t have any friends.”

“He sold me information,” I admitted. “We have an arrangement.”

She eyed me and then shrugged. I didn’t know what that meant. I couldn’t read a shrug if you gave me a hundred chances. It was a disadvantage in my way of life.

“He’s got himself a place downtown, in what’s left of the Warehouse District.”

“Have an address by any chance?”

She grabbed a scrap of paper and a stub of pencil from under the bar, scribbled something quickly. “Here’s the address. Building still has a faded mural of a blue woman on the side. He might be at the dive next door if he’s not at his apartment.”

As she handed me the paper, she added, “Oh, and when you see him, tell that cheap little shit he still owes me a hundred from our last poker game.”

I pocketed the address and thanked her.

“Don’t mention it,” she said, then added, “Seriously, don’t mention it. The King’s Council has eyes everywhere. And while I’m personally glad to see you’re alive—I was always a fan of yours, to be honest—there will be plenty who aren’t. Also, there’s that very tempting reward.”

I thanked her again and turned to leave, making my way back through the scattered tables toward the front door. Then I remembered my sword and veered to the left. I was nearly at the counter when a young woman stepped directly into my path. Her hair was dyed a vibrant purple, and she had a sleeve tattoo covering most of her left arm.

“It’s you,” she said, her voice rising with excitement. “I heard you talking to the bartender. You’re the antichrist?”

She had one of those loud voices that cut through everyone else’s conversations. The band played on, but several heads turned in my direction. The demons seemed especially interested.

“You’ve got the wrong person,” I said quietly, trying to move past her.

She sidestepped, blocking my path again. “No, it’s you. I’ve seen the old photographs. You’re him! The one everyone thought died at Armageddon. The King’s Council said you were killed before they could hang you for what you did. Traitor to the human race. It’s on your wanted poster. But I said no way. You’ve probably heard of me. I was a pretty big influencer before the nuclear war. I’m Angela. Skin care products? I still sell them, you know. Big with Gen Nuke.”

“I don’t,” I said. “Sorry, no social media where I was living.”

“If you don’t mind my saying, you could use some of my products. Maybe mention them when the King’s Council captures you and, like, you know, gives you some final words. Say something about going out looking good thanks to Angela’s skin care products. That would be so cool.”

More people were turning now. The hooded figure at the bar stood up. The leather-clad men in the corner were watching intently.

“Excuse me,” I said and stepped around her.

“Wait,” she shouted after me. “Does that mean yes or no?”

“He’s the one,” someone muttered.

“Traitor,” added another voice.

“Worth a fortune,” said a third. There was always an economist in a group.

There was excitement in the room. Not the good kind.

The crowd began to shift, closing off the exit door. The men in leather armor were definitely approaching now, hands moving to weapons concealed beneath their jackets. I turned to the bar for help. The bartender had disappeared. I couldn’t blame her.

I backed toward the door, only to find it blocked by the bouncers.

“I’d like my sword now,” I said.

“I don’t think so,” the larger one of two very large men said.

“Murderer,” someone else said.

I didn’t need my third eye to see there were murderers all over the room.

The first punch came from my left—a wild swing that I managed to duck under. The second, from directly in front, caught me in the shoulder, spinning me half around. Instinctively, I grabbed a nearby chair and swung it in a wide arc, creating momentary space.

“I wasn’t,” I said. “I didn’t.”

They rushed me. Three, then five of them, grabbed at my clothes and my arms, trying to force me to the ground. I drove my elbow into one man’s solar plexus, heard his breath escape in a whoosh. I stomped hard on another’s instep, twisted free from a third’s grasp.

The door was still blocked. I changed direction. I ran for the hallway, probably leading to restrooms and maybe a back exit.

A bottle shattered against the wall where my head had been a moment before. The hallway was dark and narrow, lined with faded posters of bands long forgotten. At the end, as I’d hoped, was a metal door with a push bar.

I hit it hard and ran into an alley behind the club. I ran around a rusted dumpster and the street where I’d left the Cadillac and Fluffy about thirty feet away. I could hear shouting behind me as the door banged open again.

I sprinted for the street, vaulting over debris and dodging around larger obstacles. As I came out onto South Congress, I could see the Cadillac still parked where I’d left it, Fluffy’s massive head now poking out of the driver’s side window, ears perked up.

“Start the engine!” I shouted to the Cadillac.

The car’s engine roared to life. The crowd from the Continental Club spilled out onto the street. Fluffy pushed the driver’s door open from inside, and I dove in just as the first pursuers reached the sidewalk.

“Go, go, go!” I yelled to the car.

The Cadillac Deville’s tires squealed as we pulled away, leaving the boys in leather, and a bouncer, and several others shouting and making unkind hand gestures.

“Hostile environment?” the Cadillac Deville asked.

“Not my fans.”

“You can’t please everyone,” it said.

So true.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Iwent to Carlos’s apartment. The building with the faded blue woman mural was easy to find, but Carlos didn’t answer my knocks. Following the second part of the bartender’s tip, I headed to the dive bar next door, which announced itself with a flickering neon sign reading “Hell’s Bitchen.”

The entrance was guarded by a creature that appeared mostly human except for the curved horn protruding from his forehead and the unnatural yellow eyes that evaluated me with a predatory interest I found disturbing.

“Weapons?” it grunted.

“Already surrendered at the Continental,” I said, showing my empty hands.

He patted me down.

“The demon bouncer sniffed the air around me, its nostrils flaring. “You smell… wrong. Not from around here?”

“Just passing through,” I replied.

After another suspicious sniff, he stepped aside, allowing me to enter.

Hell’s Bitchen lived up to its name. The interior was bathed in a reddish glow that came from lights embedded in what appeared to be actual chunks of brimstone mounted on the walls. The bar itself was constructed from blackened metal that radiated heat. It reminded me of places in hell I’d visited when I went back to see the family. I immediately broke into a sweat.

I went up to the actual bar. Behind it, bottles of liquids in unnatural colors—venomous green, electric blue, and deep crimson—lined shelves that appeared to be made from charred human bones.

The clientele was predominantly demonic. A group of imp-like creatures occupied a booth in the corner, smoking something that produced purplish clouds that twisted into obscene shapes before dissipating. They giggled at this every time another cloud went up.

Two larger demons with obsidian skin played some kind of dice game at a table near the door, using what looked like knucklebones as their dice. The air smelled of sulfur and something coppery that I didn’t want to identify.

I spotted Carlos at the far end of the bar, hunched over a glass of amber liquid. He’d aged—his once-black hair was now streaked with gray, and his face had several new scars. He wore a patchwork leather jacket over a faded T-shirt. His left hand was made of wood (not exactly excellent craftsmanship, in my opinion). The fingers were clicking softly as they tapped against his glass.

He saw me at almost the same moment I saw him. His eyes widened, and he nearly knocked over his drink in surprise. Before he could bolt (the way he tried to covertly check out his escape routes, I was sure that was his intention), I made my way over and slid onto the stool beside him.

“Been a while,” I said.

“You’re dead, dude,” he replied, leaning forward, voice barely above a whisper. His eyes nervously looked from side to side.

“I don’t feel dead.”

“Well, you are. You are dead even if you don’t know it yet. Even if it hasn’t happened.”

“Always the drama queen,” I said. “I need your help.”

“I need your help.”

He drained his glass in one swallow, then gestured toward a dark corner booth. “Over there, Satan’s Spawn. You trying to get me killed?”

“Over where?”

He pointed to another booth, which was partially enclosed by what appeared to be the remnants of an old privacy screen. Carlos slid in first, positioning himself so he could see the door.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he hissed once we were seated. “The King’s Council has a dead-or-alive reward on you. And most folks would prefer the dead option, considering what you did.”

“I keep hearing about this King’s Council. I hear about the king less.”

“He’s careful. They say there have been a dozen attempts on his life since the Battle of Armageddon. He has his council do his bidding, but every once in a while, he comes on TV and tells us what a great job he and his council are doing.”

“What’s he look like?” The way he came after me, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d had a run-in with him in the past.

“Told you. No one knows. Wears a disguise. He has a nice speaking voice, though. He has a crown on his head.”

“America has a king,” I said. “I can’t believe it. I don’t want to believe it.”

Carlos shrugged. “He doesn’t like you. Called you, after you disappeared, the Benedict Arnold of Benedict Arnolds. You brought Armageddon and nuclear war. You sold us out to alien gods.”

“I didn’t do any of those things.”

“A lot of people believe you did.”

“You believe that?” I said.

Carlos hesitated, then gave a slight shrug. “The King’s Council has evidence.”

“What evidence?”

“Sworn testimony from angels, demons, and humans. A video you made admitting everything.”

“Wasn’t me.”

“Look, I don’t care. I just don’t want to talk to you. I need to get going. I’m sorry, but you are—”

“I know,” I said. “Dead.”

He started to stand but saw how I was looking at him and sat back down with a theatrical sigh.

“I’m looking for Eden’s townspeople,” I said. “When I got back to Eden, no one was there. Someone took them. I’m guessing you know who.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“Rumors then,” I said. “You always hear rumors.”

Carlos’s expression changed. Greed and fear were battling it out. Greed won. “What’s it worth to you?”

I pulled out a small gold coin I’d found in the Collection of Curiosities. It was Roman. Carlos’s eyes locked on to it immediately. He was a collector.

“Is it real?”

“Of course. It’s from the library’s collection.”

“All I can tell you is something I heard from a land pirate. Give me the coin and I’ll tell you.”

“All I can tell you is something I heard from a land pirate. Give me the coin, and I’ll tell you.” He reached for the coin.

I held it just out of his grasp. “Information first.”

He sighed. “A rumor.”

“What’s the rumor?”

“The King’s Council has a secret prison for prisoners with special gifts. Keeps them locked up underground.”

“Here. At the SBI headquarters?”

“That’s all I know,” Carlos said, eyes still on the coin.

“You’re this close,” I said, holding up my thumb and index finger with a little space between them, “to getting the coin. I need to know where this special prison is.”

“I don’t know.”

“So close,” I said. I turned my hand, and the coin disappeared.

“Hold on now,” he said. “Just hold on. I know someone who might know.”

“Name?”

“A witch.”

“Wicked?”

“An SBI agent. She was anyway. Carlotta Perez. She was fired when the King’s Council took over. Now she runs a sanctuary out in the Hill Country. A place called Revelations. She helps former cons.”

He drew a crude map on a napkin. It was out on Highway 71.

“How would she know about this secret prison?”

“Reason she got kicked out of the SBI, according to her, was she wouldn’t play along with the new council. They arrested a lot of terrorists when they took power and appointed the king. Some people say they arrested anyone who disagreed with their new government and called them terrorists.”

I handed him the coin.

“That’s Nero on the coin,” I said.

“You don’t say,” he said.

I left him nursing a fresh drink in his dark corner, greedily examining the coin.

I’d met Nero once. The worst ADD of any psychopath I’d ever met. Couldn’t finish a complete thought before another pushed its way in.

“I’ll be back if she can’t tell me anything,” I promised. “You’d better ask around, see if you can get me a location for this secret prison. You don’t want me feeling like I’ve been cheated.”

“Always with the threats,” he said. “She knows. Not my fault if you can’t get her to talk.”

Maybe she liked old coins.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Ineeded a place to sleep. But then I thought about what I really needed. What I really needed was a place to dream. I would go see this witch at her ranch in a dream. I would learn what I needed to learn.

I drove downtown. The streets were narrow and choked with debris. I had to weave the Cadillac Deville between abandoned vehicles and occasional makeshift barricades. Downtown Austin had once been sleek skyscrapers and vibrant street life. Now those same towers were broken; their windows shattered; their bodies charred, some entries turned to rubble. They looked like they might collapse at any moment, crushing anyone unfortunate enough to be under them.

Congress Avenue, once the proud central artery up to the Capitol, was now a canyon of shadows. Makeshift camps huddled in the doorways of former banks and tech company headquarters, small fires flickering in oil drums.

As I turned onto Sixth Street, I remembered the neon-lit carnival it had once been—packed with college students, tourists, and locals. The famous entertainment district was now a patchwork of fortified compounds. Some of the old bars had been converted into what appeared to be gang headquarters. It was almost like a war zone. There were armed people everywhere, eyeing my Cadillac with naked suspicion as we rolled past.

The few pedestrians moved quickly, heads down. No one strolled casually down here. The only music now came from my memory.

“This is depressing,” the Cadillac Deville said.

“Is it my imagination or are you a lot more talkative than you used to be?” I asked.

“I regained some lost language functions when the electromagnetic field was disturbed. Isn’t it great?”

We approached the corner of Sixth and Brazos; I was glad to see it had survived. The Driskill Hotel stood right where it had always been, like a dowager queen refusing to acknowledge her kingdom had fallen. The limestone facade was scorched in places but remarkably intact. Its distinctive columns and ornate cornices practically seemed defiant in all the wreckage. I drove the Cadillac Deville into an underground garage with armed guards.

“Fancy digs, man,” the Cadillac commented as we passed through the checkpoint, where stern-faced guards with glowing blue weapons inspected the vehicle. They passed us through when I handed them some gold coins (a treasure chest) I’d found next to the Roman ones back in the Collection of Curiosities.

The garage was dimly lit by strings of mismatched bulbs, some of which flickered erratically. A guard came over. He had patches of fish scales on his exposed forearms, a mutation.

He greeted me, and then said, “I escort you upstairs. You check in. Then I come back and record your car information. It will be safe.”

Fluffy got out of the car. The guard stepped back and nervously raised his rifle.

“Are they going to let Fluffy into the hotel?”

“What is it?” the guard asked.

“You’ve never seen a hellhound?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

Fluffy growled.

“Lower your weapon,” I ordered the man.

He didn’t hesitate. He led us to a stairway up to the lobby. As we climbed, my mind turned over what I’d been told about my supposed role in Armageddon.

The official story, it seemed, was I was responsible for it all. Armageddon, the alien gods, attempted takeover with the help of many powerful humans and nuclear war. Only the heroic actions of the king and the King’s Council had saved humanity from an even worse fate. Since I was the devil’s son and the antichrist, naturally humans and angels, and even demons, thought the worst of me. Although most demons thinking the worst of me was actually a compliment.

I had been trying to prevent Armageddon, not cause it. I had done everything I could. But the council had needed a scapegoat, and I conveniently disappeared right when everything fell into chaos. The perfect choice for their narrative. Maybe it was that, or maybe it was something more.

Who would benefit most from casting me as the architect of Armageddon and nuclear war? The King’s Council was most likely, but there were other candidates that they might be working with or even for. The Harvester himself, who maybe, had never left. He would have power over all the human, angel, and demon collaborators. He’d be trying to reposition himself. Maybe even working on a plan to take over the Earth for the god of gods again. I still didn’t think this one was likely. When he’d left, I’d believed he was going back to his home to find his family.

There was also the possibility that Michael’s angels or Lucifer’s demons had initiated the narrative. Both would have reasons to deflect blame for their roles, and both had been disappointed I hadn’t joined their side.

I reached the lobby and paused, momentarily taken aback by the sight. The Driskill’s famous rotunda was still recognizable, its ornate columns and moldings largely intact. But the luxury had been tempered by necessity. The grand chandeliers now held a mixture of electric bulbs and what appeared to be magical illumination sources. The marble floor was cracked in places and repaired with cement.

Behind the front desk, a woman with silver hair—not gray, but genuinely metallic silver—stood attentively. She wore what might have once been a hotel uniform, now modified with armor plating at the shoulders and chest.  There were heavily armed guards everywhere. I had the distinct sense that there was no central government law enforcement or if there was it wasn’t effective.

“Welcome to the Driskill,” she said. Crisp voice. “Do you have a reservation?”

“No, I just want a room for one night.”

She studied me with unnervingly reflective eyes. “Identification?”

This was a problem I hadn’t anticipated. I had nothing to prove who I was—and given what I’d learned about my reputation, revealing my identity didn’t seem like the brightest idea.

“Lost in the wastelands,” I said. “I’m a trader from the north. Just passing through.”

“With a hellhound?” she said, pointing out that “just a trader from the north” was unlikely.

“We found each other,” I said.

“Found each other,” Fluffy said. “Found each other. Hungry.”

To her, this would have sounded like something like a tiger humming. I had once heard a tiger hum, and I’d never forget that sound, and when I listened to how Fluffy sounded in her mind, I was surprised it was very similar to that tiger. It was true that you learned something new every day if you just put a little effort into it.

“You need papers and the hellhound is extra.”

“How about extra for both?” I asked.

She eyed me closely. “We require payment in advance. We accept supernatural coin, angel script, demon marks, or tradeable goods of equivalent value.”

I produced two gold coins. Her eyebrows rose slightly.

“How many nights?” she asked.

“One. The second coin is for you.”

“I think we can accommodate you and your hellhound,” she said. She turned to the guard and said he could go back to the garage.

She tapped something into a terminal that appeared to be cobbled together from pre-war technology and newer components. “Room 217. Second floor. The elevator is non-functional, so you’ll need to use the stairs. Be aware that construction is ongoing on the third floor and above. There is a ghost that usually greets guests on the stairway. Ignore her lewd comments or threats. She has no power here.”

She handed me a key—an actual metal key, not a card—attached to a heavy brass tag engraved with the room number.

“We have a curfew. If you’re out past eleven, you won’t get back in.”

“The only place I’m going is to bed.”

I made my way to the grand staircase, which had survived remarkably well. As I climbed to the second floor, I thought again about being made a scapegoat. It was like an itch I couldn’t scratch. There was nothing I could do about it.

At the top of the stairs, I met the ghost. She was one of those that had aged badly in ghosthood. Her face was skeletal and her body thin and boney, and she screamed curses at me and promised to come to me in the night. I saw the madness in her. She’d stayed too long on Earth, living between life and afterlife. I followed the desk clerk’s advice and ignored her.

The second-floor hallway was eerily quiet. Wall sconces provided dim light, alternating between electric fixtures and the same magical orbs I’d seen in the lobby. I supposed magicians had to find ways to make a living in this new world order.

Numbered doors lined the corridor, most showing signs of repair—patches in the wood, reinforced hinges, and what looked like protective sigils etched subtly into the frames.

Room 217 was at the end of the hallway, a corner room. The key turned smoothly in the lock, and I stepped inside, scanning for threats out of habit. Fluffy was beside me, doing the same.

The room was spacious, with high ceilings and large windows covered by heavy drapes. The furnishings were a mix of original Driskill pieces—a massive four-poster bed—and more practical additions. A writing desk stood against one wall. A small fireplace had been converted to some other type of heating system that glowed with a blue-white light but produced no visible flame.

The bathroom had running water, a luxury I hadn’t expected. It came out slightly discolored at first but cleared after running for a few seconds. This place was definitely for the elite of whatever society had formed in the ruins of Austin.

I pulled back the drapes to look out at the city. Night had fallen completely now. I could see off in the distance a glow. I thought that was maybe off above the lake, a rich neighborhood. There was a scattering of lights on the top floors of condo buildings. The electric grid wasn’t working, but some with money seemed to have managed to get lights. In the distance, the blue beacon atop the tower at the former SBI headquarters pulsed steadily, like a watchful eye over the city.

Olive and Rip and the others could be imprisoned in that building. I knew it had several floors deep underground. I’d been down to the offices many times. I’d seen cells, too, but not enough to hold thousands. However, that could have changed. They could have expanded. I could be close to Olive right now.

I imagined seeing her, and then I thought about how it had been five years. Five long years for her. Five years in a prison. Would she ever forgive me for that? Would she hate me for what she’d gone through? I had failed her somehow. I didn’t know how, but I must have. I still couldn’t remember anything about the night I’d traveled to another dimension, leaving Olive to be kidnapped. I didn’t know what happened, but I knew the result.

I closed the drapes, checked the locks on the door, and lay down on the bed fully clothed, my only weapon, a knife within reach. Of course, my most important weapon was a four hundred-plus pound hellhound lying by the bed.

I petted him. He reminded me that we hadn’t eaten. I was ready for sleep, but I had a feeling he wouldn’t let me if I didn’t feed him something.

I went to the pack and emptied the three cans of beef I’d gotten at Raphael’s store in Eden. I opened them and laid them out for him. He ate them in one bite.

“Hungry, hungry,” he said.

“Tomorrow,” I said.

I lay on the bed. Fluffy reminded me he was hungry for about five minutes and then fell asleep. I spoke the words that I hoped would allow me to dreamwalk, (a spell Olive called it, but I thought of it more like a prayer) and I fell asleep, too.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Islept for a while. I wasn’t sure how long, but then I managed to dreamwalk. I’d never tried what I was trying. I wanted to dreamwalk back to a specific moment in time, back to the night when Eden had been invaded by someone and everyone had been taken. I needed to know what happened, how they had all been caught off guard, and most importantly, who had taken them.

Five years ago.

I pictured myself back there on the night the Battle of Armageddon ended. Olive and I were in bed. Fluffy was lying over by the fireplace. I saw myself sleeping. Then there was a bright flash of light outside, like an explosion.

Olive sat up. I kept sleeping. There were screams and shouts outside, and Fluffy jumped up, and Olive said, “What in the god’s name is that?”

I kept sleeping.

Everything froze. It was a dream, so it was like I was in it and watching at the same time. It was like the picture on the screen had frozen, but for me in the dream, it was like I was cut off from everything.

My Uncle Chad appeared. Uncle from the other side of the family rather than my father’s. Uncle from the heaven side.

“How’s it going?” Chad asked.

“It’s been better,” I said, but then I considered my recent history. “And worse.”

“You don’t belong here.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I’m telling you that you don’t belong here.”

“I’m trying to understand what happened.”

“I can’t let you do that,” Uncle Chad said.

“Why not?”

“Against the rules.”

“What rules?”

“You know I can’t tell you which rules.”

“You could tell me.”

“Except I can’t. You don’t understand.”

“Except I know you can. You have the power. You are the creator’s son.”

“Which is why I can’t just ignore the rules. Anyway, that doesn’t mean what you mortals think it means. I should have told you earlier.”

“What do I think it means?”

“It’s not like he had this one son and me and your mother.”

“That’s what the good book says.”

“This will come as a big surprise, but the good book isn’t always 100 percent accurate.

The creator was a seducer. I talked to Freud about him back when—”

“You’re getting a little off track here,” I said.

“Your mother and I have a few hundred brothers and sisters. Most of them don’t even know they’re the sons and daughters of the creator. Some of them aren’t even on this planet.”

“So, what are you saying?”

“The universe has rules. There’s things I can’t tell you without breaking them, and if I do, who knows what will happen?”

“Someone sent me off to another dimension,” I said. “Who?”

“It’s not so hard to do,” he said. “It’s not as if there are only a few dimensions.”

“This is getting all tangled up.”

“You expect the universe to be simple?”

“You sent me?”

“Your mother.”

“Did my mother kidnap the townspeople of Eden?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. She kept you from being kidnapped. She didn’t interfere beyond that. But that might be enough to change everything and probably not in a good way. The accountant—” He stopped abruptly and put his open hand over his mouth.

“Who?”

“Never mind,” he said. “Stay out of dreams that take you back to five years ago, and whatever you do, don’t time travel back. You can’t imagine the damage you might do. If the numbers go wrong—”

“But—”

Chad blew out a strong breath then, and it was like a wind, and it blew me right out of the dream.

I woke up in the hotel room.

“That’s messed up!” I shouted.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Iopened my eyes and jumped out of the bed because someone was sitting in the chair. By the bed, I turned on a light. It was just the ghost from the stairs who wasn’t supposed to be able to leave the stairs. She looked done in. She looked like she’d collapsed in the chair and couldn’t get back to her ghostly feet.

“I ain’t been able to leave that stairway for a century, but here I am in your room. You must be a magician.”

“I’m not,” I said.

“Don’t matter. You can’t help me. No one can. Got the deep scar of sin. So deep. I’m being punished for my deed, and I’ll never escape.”

In my experience with ghosts, it was usually not some external force keeping them from moving on. It was something in them that they couldn’t let go of.

“What deed? I asked.

She frowned. “Why do you care?”

I shrugged. “I can’t sleep, and I am a bad sleeper when I do. Nightmares.”

“Wait until you’re a ghost. You can’t sleep at all. I’d give anything to be able to sleep for five minutes.”

“Tell me why you’re here,” I said.

“Tell you why?”

“Please.”

So she told me (literally) a ghost story, a ghost’s ghost story. And in that story I saw a possibility I hadn’t seen before. In my twenties, I’d dealt with criminals when I’d been sent around the country to help people the angels, for reasons I never quite knew, sought to help from what they called bad situations.

I was chosen by the angels (by Gabriel) to be one of their agents, and I did it for a few reasons. One was I was trying to make up for some bad things I’d done in my past. Another was I was looking for something, and I liked to keep on the move (not that I knew what I was looking for). I liked, it turned out, helping people.

In her story, I saw a possibility I hadn’t thought of before tonight. If I didn’t start the nuclear war, why did everyone believe I did? What had I missed seeing when I’d been caught up in trying to save the world that allowed them to believe the lie?

The ghost told her story.

“That day, I expected to save my sister from marrying a man who had caught me in the barn many times when I was a girl and kept me until he’d had his way with me. We was a gifted family in the ways of witchcraft, and the man was a magician out of New Orleans but owned a farm near our own. His name was Elijah Moreau, and folks called him The Gentleman Conjurer. Nothing gentle about him, I can tell you that. We lived in a small town in the Hill Country, west of Austin.

“It was 1899, and I was twenty-three. My sister Amelia was barely sixteen, pretty as a peach and twice as sweet. She and I were close, close as two sisters could be.

“When Elijah started calling on Amelia, bringing gifts and speaking them sweet nothings he’d spoke to me in the beginning, I tried to warn her. But how could I tell my baby sister the truth? The shame of it burned in me like a fever. So I told her he was a dishonest man, that his magic was darker than she knew. She just laughed and said, ‘All the best magic has a touch of darkness.’

“She thought she knew him. She thought she was smart. She thought she was special. That kind of thinking will get you into trouble every time.

“The wedding was set for June twenty-first—summer solstice. No coincidence there. A magician like Elijah used every power available to him. The ceremony was to be held right here, in what became the Driskill Hotel’s ballroom. Back then, it was just the finest event hall in Austin.

“I spent months preparing. Learned things Mama never taught us—spells from an old woman who lived out in the hills, whose grandmother had come from Haiti. Spells that weren’t in our family book of spells. These was dark and dangerous and had the cunning of dark spirits in them, but I was desperate.

“The day before the wedding, I caught Elijah with his grimoire open. He had Amelia’s name written in what looked like blood, surrounded by symbols I didn’t recognize but knew meant nothing good. That’s when I realized he wasn’t just marrying my sister; he was going to use her in some ritual to gain power. I knew she was in danger of losing her life if she became his bride.

“I followed him that night. He went to the graveyard and spoke with something there, something that answered from beneath the ground, from deep inside the earth. I couldn’t hear the words, but I saw the grave dirt move. When he left, I dug where he’d been standing. Six feet down, I found a doll made from corn husks with Amelia’s hair braided around it.

“All kinds of things went through my mind. Six feet was the deepness of a grave, and he’d buried the doll where he planned to bury Amelia. I told myself even he wouldn’t kill Amelia on her wedding night, but the more I thought of it, the more I believed he must have made a pact with a demon or the devil his-self.

“I saw it then. How it had all been planned out. His paying me attention, his cruelty to me, and then his careful seduction of my sister. I had played right into his plan when I kept trying to make her see what he was. She came to mistrust me, even resent me, and believe I was just jealous. He’d understood how before he came along we had a special bond he couldn’t have undone except by making me act like I’d been against him from the first for no reason but jealousy.

“I know what you’re thinking, and I thought it myself. I had the sound of a woman losing her hold on reality. Of a woman who was seeing things that wasn’t there. But I knew he’d made a plan years ago and maybe used some magic that gave him foresight. You see, it weren’t just Amelia who saw how against him I was. It were my whole family, including my good father and my mother and the whole of our relations and friends.

“That night, I finished my own preparations. I made a powder from ground bones of a black cat, graveyard dirt, and dried angel’s trumpet flowers. The old witch promised that Elijah would be forced to tell the truth of what he was and what he’d done. All his glamours would fall away, and all would see him as the monster he was. We would all see the real Elija. She promised.

“I would save my sister.

“The morning of the wedding, I slipped into the kitchen where the cake waited. Five tiers of white frosting, decorated with sugar flowers and little cupids. The cake offended me. It was a lie. It was all a lie. I sprinkled my powder between the layers where the baker was adding fresh strawberries. The powder dissolved, turning the red juice slightly purple. I thought nothing of it at the time.

“The ceremony went as planned. Amelia was radiant. Elijah wore a false smile. I stood among the bridesmaids, waiting for the reception to begin.

“When it came time to cut the cake, I held my breath. Elijah fed a piece to Amelia, then took a bite himself. The powder was supposed to make him speak the truth. But a second later, it was Amelia who was lying on the floor, spitting up blood all over her red gown. She saw me standing over her, horrified.

“‘Clara,’ she said, ‘what have you done?’

“‘What did you do?’ Elijah screamed at me, his face twisted with rage. ‘What did you put in the cake?’

He was a good actor, good enough. Everyone in that room believed it. I had killed my own sister. And it was true. I had. She was dead. Elijah had his men carry off her body. I was carried off to jail and eventually hung for killing my own sister.

“My spirit came back to the scene of my crime right here in this hotel, where she cursed me as she died. She was right to do it. I had killed her. And now I’ve been here for over a hundred years all alone.”

“Your sister wouldn’t want you to stay here,” I said.

“She was right to do it. I killed her.”

“What was her curse?”

The ghost looked at me with hollow eyes. “I never heard. It doesn’t matter. I’ll never leave this place.”

“You were trying to save your sister,” I said.

“And I killed her.”

“And you’ve been punished. You’ve paid a heavy price. You were used, tricked. She knows now.”

“She couldn’t ever forgive such a terrible act. I just wanted to make him tell the truth, but she’s right. I deserve this eternal damnation.”

“I can see her. I have the gift. She doesn’t keep you here.”

“You’re wrong. She does. I feel her curse hang over me.”

I shook my head. “You keep you here. Your guilt. It’s time to let go of it.”

I had the power of illusion, and I used it then. I made her think she saw her sister across the room. The ghost sister was shedding ghost tears. I was worried that it was too much, but the ghost girl, Clara, began to cry, too. A second later, she was gone. I could see with my third eye that she had taken the arm of Death and passed out of the hotel into whatever afterworld she was bound for.

I lay back in bed. Fluffy turned over. He’d slept through the whole ghostly visit.

Had I been used during the Battle of Armageddon, during what became the Apocalypse? The world had come to an end because of the battle that I couldn’t stop. I had been successful in stopping The Harvester from using his illusions of shadow gods to create a situation where he, with the help of humans, angels and demons, could harvest humankind for the god of gods.

But the world as we knew it had ended because of the nuclear war. I had nothing to do with that. Or did I? When I heard the girl ghost’s story it made me wonder if maybe I did have something to do with the nuclear war after all. Maybe I’d been tricked into causing an act far more terrible than the ghost girl’s. But what act?

The possibility kept me tossing and turning for at least an hour before I fell asleep.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The next morning, I woke before the sun came up. I was thinking about Olive, remembering the first time I met her. I remembered how I’d fallen for her right away. I’d had conflicting feelings because I thought she might be a murderer. I knew the complications of falling in love with a murderer were numerous.

But while she’d technically murdered a man, it had been an accident. I fell in love and then a little out of love and then in love again, and then… Our relationship had been on again and off again until shortly before Armageddon. Facing Armageddon had made us more serious about being together. We made plans. Plans for a future.

I was still sure about being together. But five years was a long time. I couldn’t stop thinking about that. She had been locked away in prison for five years. I had lost most of that time dancing. I still loved her, but could she love me after all that time? Did she love me?

I told Fluffy I was going downstairs for the free breakfast and that I would be right back and we would go and I would bring him some breakfast. He wasn’t too happy about that. He saw no reason a hellhound shouldn’t attend a free breakfast.

I went back to the stairway. As I started down the stairs, the lights went out. The whole place went dark. They were off for a full ten seconds. In that time, I heard them rushing up the stairs. Cowboy boots on marble floors. Very noisy.

The lights came back on. They had formed a circle around where I had been. They were befuddled. I wasn’t still there. I was, but I created the illusion that I wasn’t. If they’d looked closer, they would see me.

These were not ninja assassins or former elite soldiers. They were mean-looking biker-cowboy types. All of them had compelling snarls. However, not trained. If they had been trained, I would have likely been dead. I had not been prepared.

“Drop the guns,” I said.

No one moved. They were all trying to hear where my voice was.

One of them turned the snarls into words. He saw me. “I am going to tear your head off, antichrist. I am going to turn you over to the King’s Council in pieces.”

I caught him with a kick that took out his knee and a tiger strike to his neck. He tumbled onto the floor. I took his gun.

I changed my position, still hidden.

“Drop the guns,” I said, shooting one of them in the leg.

They all obliged me with some urgency then. The guns clattered on the floor.

“Leave now before my demons eat you,” I said. I thought that sounded pretty good. It probably wouldn’t have worked, but hotel security showed up. I had to wonder where they’d been before.

I went on to breakfast. I ate breakfast and watched for more bounty hunters, amateur or professionals. None came. I filled my plate with eggs and bacon for Fluffy and took it upstairs. He ate the food in about three seconds.

After breakfast, we drove out of town on Highway 71 and into the Hill Country.  Along the way, Fluffy reminded me that he hadn’t eaten for two minutes and was very hungry. I hadn’t seen a large grocery store, but I saw a few convenience stores. I stopped at one.

I got Fluffy some meat in cans. I asked the man in the counter if it was beef.

“Course it’s beef. What else would it be?”

I hazarded a guess. “One of those very large rats I saw downtown.”

“We’ve got beef from cows again. Cost you an arm and a leg. There're some stores downtown near the posh streets where the supernaturals live. What I got is beef from another animal.”

I didn’t argue the point. I wasn’t going back to town for beef. Fluffy ate stinky stinky meat back in Eden. I supposed a little rat from a very large rat wouldn’t bother him.

“Where you headed?” he asked me.

I told him I was going to the Hill Country.

“Far as I know, you won’t be able to get gas until you get to Amarillo. If you can, it will be a hoarder pumping it. They’ll want a fortune, and you’ll likely get attacked by raiders if you pick the wrong place to stop. Best fill up here.”

“Not safe then?” I asked.

“Not at night. Mostly safe during the day in most places, but far from all. The sticks is the sticks. Night is different. Things come out.”

“What things?”

“Things in the shadows, you know. We got demons now, show themselves all the time. And we got other things. You know.”

“I don’t,” I said. “I’ve been away for a while.”

He gave me a searching look. “That’s all I’m saying,” he said, and said he’d best get back to ordering his shelves.

I drove out Highway 71. It had been mostly cleared. There was an occasional burned car by the side of the road. I followed Carlos’s directions. On the way, I saw people on horseback, and I saw a couple of cars driving toward town. I may have seen one of the big rats. It was the size of a feral hog. Fluffy, of course, got very interested. His nose pressed into the passenger window. He made a low growl.

“Like big rats,” he said.

“I know,” I said. I let him say it.

“Taste like chicken,” he said and guffawed. “Hungry. So hungry.”

I slammed on the brakes and pulled the car over and opened the door. “Go get him.”

I wasn’t sure there would be much opportunity to get food in the near future, and I saw a chance to let him fill up in case he had to go a few days without food. As soon as I let him go, I worried there might be a pack of rats out there. Did rats travel in packs? He was gone a good thirty minutes, but when he came back, he had a smile on his hellhound face.

“Taste like chicken?” I asked.

“I like big rats.”

I was definitely not going to be letting that hellhound lick me today. I was going to keep a strategic distance.

I came to sign for the ranch and turned down a long dirt drive.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Closer to the big house, which was at the top of the hill, we came to a gate where a man and a woman held rifles. I could tell right away the woman was a demon. The horns were a giveaway.

She came up to the car. She looked me over. “That a hellhound in the back?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She pulled out her radio and told someone that a human with a hellhound was at the gate and wanted to see Carlotta. I could tell she didn’t want me to see Carlotta. She didn’t want me to go beyond her gate. But she got orders from inside to let me in, and she did.

As I drove by her, her skin turned a shade of red, and her horns seemed more prominent. I could imagine her pulling the trigger and spraying us with bullets. She managed to keep herself from doing it, but I could tell it took a lot of effort.

We drove up to the house. It looked like it had been on that hill for a long time. I could imagine the house and the ranch with thousands of cows. There was likely a stream nearby. I could see big trees and green to the north, which looked cool even in the Texas morning heat. A series of wind turbines spun lazily on a nearby ridge. There was a huge garden off in a field.

A woman stood on the porch, waiting for us. She was tall and imposing, with silver-streaked black hair pulled back in a severe braid that reached her waist. Her face might have been beautiful once, but now it was all angles and sharp edges, like something carved from wood by an impatient hand. She wore faded jeans, boots, and a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms covered in intricate tattoos.

“The famous librarian,” she said as I approached the porch. Her voice was surprisingly melodic. It was a contrast to her tough-woman look.

I’d hoped to surprise her, but she acted as if she’d expected me. Maybe my good friend Carlos had warned her.

She smiled again. “Welcome to Revelations.”

Fluffy pressed against my leg.

“Your hellhound might enjoy looking around. There are lots of animals on the ranch. Just tell him not to eat any of the domestic horses or cows. There’s a female hellhound over in the cages. She’s not as civilized as yours. He might want to keep his distance.

Fluffy looked up at me questioningly. He said he wanted to go.

“It’s okay,” I told him, though I wasn’t entirely sure it was. “Go check it out. I’ll call if I need you.”

A young man appeared, unremarkable except for the third eye in the center of his forehead, currently closed, and gestured for Fluffy to follow. After another hesitant look at me, Fluffy padded after him.

“Come inside,” Carlotta said, holding open the screen door.

The interior of the house was cool and woodsy. She led me to a study lined with bookshelves. Many of the volumes looked old. Many were on the practice of witchcraft.

A large desk dominated the center of the room, covered with papers, crystals, and what appeared to be small animal bones arranged in some kind of pattern.

“So,” she said, settling into a worn leather chair and indicating I should take the one opposite. “What can I do for you?”

“I’ve heard that if a man wanted some information about the King’s Council, you are the place to get it.”

“I don’t have much to do with the King’s Council these days. But I hear things.”

“What kind of things?”

She studied me for a long moment. “Why don’t I tell you how I ended up here first? I’d like you to understand why I’m doing what I’m doing.”

“Please,” I said, but really I just wanted to get to my question.

“I was SBI before Armageddon,” she said. “One of the good ones, or so I believed. When everything fell apart, I went to work trying to put it together. But that wasn’t what the powers that be wanted. They wanted it to fall apart more so they could move in and take control. I spoke against them. They sent me to prison. Said I was a terrorist.”

She stood and moved to a small cabinet, where she removed a ceramic teapot and two cups. She filled the pot from a copper kettle that was simmering on a hotplate. “I spent two years there. Afterward, I found some sponsors among old friends and enemies who saw it was in their interest to help me.”

The tea smelled of mint. She poured two cups and offered one to me.

“I don’t often drink tea,” I said, eyeing the cup.

“You’ll like this tea,” she said, and she took a deliberate sip, locking eyes with me.

I was thirsty. I hadn’t been thirsty a few seconds ago. I should have seen what she was doing, but I wasn’t paying attention. I took the cup, and after watching her take another drink, sipped cautiously.

The tea tasted pleasant enough—mint, honey, and an unidentifiable herbal note. But almost immediately, I felt a strange numbness spreading across my body. I felt my fingers stiffen. I lost grip of my teacup. The cup slipped out of my hands and shattered on the hardwood floor.

Carlotta set her cup down.

“Poison?” I asked.

“A paralytic. You’ll be able to hear and see everything, just not move. You’ll be able to speak. I need you to speak.”

“What a relief,” I said.

She leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “I must say, I’m relieved it worked. I really didn’t want to have to kill you. You’re worth so much more to me alive.”

“Good to know,” I said.

“But I will kill you if I don’t get what I want.”

“Is this all part of the Revelations program?” I asked. “Because I have to be honest. I don’t think it’s very effective. I don’t feel less angry than when I walked in.”

She stood and walked a slow circle around my immobilized form. “The King’s Council has had a bounty on your head for over five years, even though they insisted you were dead. The traitor librarian—the man who helped the alien gods, who caused the nuclear war.”

“You believe that?”

“Every regime needs its bogeyman. You are ours.”

“But you know better.”

She shrugged. “It’s possible. You are the antichrist, after all. But I know that the council seeks power at all costs. To achieve power, more power, they manipulate the truth. Since the nuclear war, they have needed to manipulate it more and more. So I don’t know if you’ve done what they say you’ve done. It hardly matters. What matters is what they can convince people to believe.”

“That is a very cynical outlook,” I pointed out.

She shrugged. She stopped in front of me, bending down to look me in the eye. “The thing is, I’m tired of this life. Tired of trying to reform demons and angels and supernaturals and regular old ordinaries who don’t want to be reformed. I feel like I’m on the sidelines. I want back in the game.”

“Sounds like you’ll fit right in with the ones who put you in prison.”

She straightened up, moving back to her desk. She looked a little put out. Finally, something had stuck. Her reaction wasn’t what I hoped for.  

“You are my ticket back. After all, I’ve accomplished what none of them could.” She smiled coldly. “I’ve caught the worst traitor in the history of the world.”

“That hurts coming from you,” I said. “Oh, wait, no it doesn’t because you’re another power-mad, psychopathic killer who believes you can fool all the people all the time.”  

“You betrayed the whole human species.”

“But that is not how the saying goes.”

“What?”

“You can fool some of the people all of the time and all the people some of the time, but not all the people all the time.”

“It’s a stupid saying.”

“Been around a long time,” I said. “Makes me think this fooling people thing has been around a long time, too.”

“It’s nothing personal,” Carlotta continued, arranging the bones on her desk into a new pattern. “Just business. Survival. I’ve spent too long trying to save others when I should have been saving myself. Do you have any idea how exhausting it is trying to make bad people good? Most of them don’t want to change.”

The door opened. Two large men entered. One with bright red hair. One who had a uni-brow. Big thick one. More snake than caterpillar.

“Take him to the holding cell,” Carlotta ordered. “I’ll contact the King’s Council. Set up a meeting. You and I will talk more before they come, Librarian. I have many questions. I have many questions.”

“Where were you in prison?” I asked.

“Folsom.”

“Did you see the townspeople from Eden?”

“They were too important for Folsom. Likely they’re in the Carlsbad Caverns Prison. You’ll never see them again. I’m sorry it has to end this way. If we’d met before all this happened, we probably would have been on the same side.”

She turned to the guards. “Take him.”

As they lifted me from the chair, my body limp and unresponsive, Carlotta added almost as an afterthought, “Oh, and put the hellhound down.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Iwas locked up in a stone cell with no windows. I tried magic to break the spell of the tea, but I couldn’t so much as move a pinky. I tried sending Fluffy a telepathic message. RUN! I screamed it with my mind as loudly as I could about a dozen times. I had no way of knowing if it got through or if he could run, even if it did. For all I knew, he was already dead.

Then I tried calling Dread, thinking maybe my being here on Earth might give me a clearer reception, and he would hear me. Nothing. This cell was probably magic proof.

I couldn’t wiggle a finger or toes, much less escape. I had come to the flatlands with no real plan and so I couldn’t really say my plan had failed. I had failed.

Sitting there, helpless, feeling hopeless, I tried to remember the last time I’d seen Olive. I tried to remember the very last moment. We were in bed on the night of the Battle of Armageddon. After weeks, the standoff was so obvious that all sides had just about admitted there was no use to keep fighting, and then the humans had set off their nuclear weapons and everything changed.

We were in bed and had just been talking about our future in Eden. We had been trying to convince each other we had one, and I believed we did. I believed. She seemed to believe. We were talking about moving in together, even adopting children. I kissed her goodnight. I felt her body against mine. I could see her face in the moonlight. I expected to see resolve for the future because that was what I was feeling just then, but it was sadness I saw.

“Are you all right,” I’d asked.

“Everything will be all right,” she said.

I wondered now if she’d had some flash vision of the future. At the time, I thought it was the natural anxiety a person was going to feel after a nuclear holocaust, but now I had to wonder if she’d had a vision and tried to ignore it or maybe kept it from me for some reason.

What did it matter now? What did that night matter? Five years had passed. I had been a fool and stepped right into a trap and lost five years.

Maybe Olive and the others were in Carlsbad Caverns Prison. Maybe not. I wasn’t going to have a chance to follow that lead and find out. There was nothing I could do paralyzed except wait to be locked up in prison somewhere, likely an isolated somewhere, while I waited for execution. I might as well just give up and go to sleep.

Go to sleep. That was it. A long shot. A Hail Mary.

I tried to relax myself. I counted sheep. I counted sheep dogs. I said the words, the spell, or prayer. After a time, I began to drift.

I woke in a dark, locked room, but I knew immediately I wasn’t paralyzed anymore. And this room had a way out. I just had to find it. The darkness was almost complete, but not quite—a faint purple glow slipped through what appeared to be cracks in the floor. I moved toward them, finding, as I’d hoped, that in the dream space, the paralytic tea had no power over me.

The cracks formed a pattern that looked almost like writing—ancient symbols that I couldn’t read. I knelt and placed my palm flat against the largest cluster of glowing lines. The floor trembled, then began to dissolve beneath my hand. At first this was troubling. But then I realized I was standing at the top of a spiral staircase.

“Thank you, dream logic,” I muttered, and began the descent. The great thing about dream logic was it was illogical in a logical way.

The staircase wound down and down and down. . The walls around me changed as I descended—first stone, then earth, then something that looked like dark marble, and finally, a material that resembled smoked glass but felt warm to the touch. Dream physics which made a mockery of the laws of the universe.

At the bottom, a narrow tunnel stretched before me, illuminated by that same purple light, now pulsing slowly like a heartbeat. I focused my thoughts on my father. I pictured his face (one of his faces anyway, a handsome one), his palace in hell, the way his presence always made the air feel charged with a kind of current—like lightning or a tornado was bearing down on me. Lucifer, dear old dad.

The tunnel responded to my thoughts, shifting and elongating, then abruptly opening onto a vast, barren landscape. The sky above was crimson, streaked with black, fast-moving clouds. In the distance rose a mountain of black stone, and atop it sat a palace that swallowed the light around it.

“Hell,” I said with certainty. I’d been here before, visited my father’s domain several times. It always had that same oppressive sky, that same feeling of vast, ancient power. But as soon as I thought this, I knew something was wrong. It looked the same, and it had the feeling, but it wasn’t exactly the feeling.

I moved toward the palace. What should have been a journey of many hours took only moments, the landscape blurring around me until I stood before an enormous iron gate intricately worked with scenes of what appeared to be angels jumping out of heaven. Lucifer had always contended that the creator didn’t make them fall from heaven. They jumped.

Jumping Angels didn’t have the same gravitas as Fallen Angels though. I had pointed this out to him once. He didn’t appreciate it.

Two guards flanked the entrance—massive beings with skin like burnished bronze and eyes that glowed like burning coals. Their black wings were folded tightly against their backs, and each held a spear that shimmered with dark energy.

“I’ve come to see Lucifer,” I announced.

The guards exchanged glances.

“The Master does not receive vistors without an appointment,” the one on the left growled, his voice like stones grinding together.

“He’s booked for the next thousand years. We could get you in on Wednesday, June 3 of 3026 if he agrees to see you,” the other said.

“Tell him his son is here to see him. Former antichrist. Been missing. He’ll want to see me.”

The second guard tilted his head, studying me. “We were told you were dead, Your Highness.”

“Where exactly am I? It looks like hell, but it’s not.”

“You are at Hell On Earth, the Dark Prince’s ranch.”

“Which is where?”

“West Texas.”

“Where in West Texas?”

“Near Big Bend.”

“Hot,” I said.

“Not nearly as comfortable as hell, but close.”

Even in my dream state, I could feel the scorching heat radiating from the black stones.

“I need to see him,” I said.

The guards hesitated, but this was my dream, and I willed them to comply.

The first guard tapped his spear against the gate. The gates swung open silently despite their massive size, revealing a courtyard. Fountains dotted the space. They flowed with a thick red liquid that turned out to be blood. It might not be hell, but Lucifer did his best to give it a homey resemblance to the place he’d spent so many centuries.

The palace itself was a sprawling structure of black stone and metal with tall spires. It was a pretty good replica of Father’s palace in hell, down to the gargoyles perched along the roofline, who liked to shout curses and spit on anyone who passed too close.

I walked across the courtyard, feeling the heat seep through the soles of my dream shoes. Inside the palace, it was even warmer. The entry hall stretched before me, lined with columns that resembled petrified tree trunks, their surfaces inscribed with what looked like names. I recognized the architectural style. Hell on earth.

Demon attendants moved through the halls, some carrying scrolls, others bearing trays with goblets, smoke rising off them. They paid me little attention, their eyes flicking over me with mild curiosity at most.

I knew the way to the throne room—down the main corridor, past the Gallery of Black Wing Angels, through the antechamber where petitioners normally waited (now empty), and finally, through a set of doors tall enough to accommodate beings three times my height.

The throne room was vast, its ceiling lost in shadows despite the numerous braziers that burned along the walls. The floor was a mosaic depicting what appeared to be Armageddon—but not the one I had witnessed. This seemed to be my father’s interpretation of events, with himself at the center, directing the chaos and eventually overcoming the angels and winning the battle.

And there, at the far end of the room, atop a dais of graduated black marble steps, sat Lucifer himself on a throne that appeared to be carved from human bones. His appearance was much as I remembered—unnaturally beautiful in a way that was almost painful to look at. He wore a suit of deep black.

Flanking the throne stood four demon guards, their bodies covered in heavy armor. In this dream state, they seemed less substantial than my father. But four of them were significant. Lucifer had never needed four guards in hell.

Father leaned forward slightly as I approached. “They say the kids keep coming back home these days. And here you are. If you expect to move into the palace, I’m going to have to say no. The supernatural humans have become very powerful in this part of the world.”

“Since when are you afraid of humans?”

“I am afraid of no one. But why should I protect you, the worst antichrist ever?”

“We’re family,” I said. “Anyway, I don’t want to move into your palace.”

“Good. No room anyway. Not for you.”

“But I do need your help,” I said.

“Do I get to kill humans?”

“Probably,” I said.

“I’m listening.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“But before we get to what you want,” Lucifer said. “I have a question for you. I need you to answer it truthfully.”

“All right,” I said.

“Is he back?” he asked.

“He who?”

“You know who.”

“No,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure. I don’t think he’d let things go the way they did if he was.”

“I’m not talking about five years ago. By the way, where have you been? You don’t call. You don’t write.”

“Another dimension,” I said. “Captured in a dream by fairies who loved to dance.”

“They all love to dance.”

“Anyway, they had me.”

“That’s no excuse.”

“It kind of is,” I said.

“He hasn’t contacted you in any way? No visions or dreams with him in them?”

“No.”  

“Who locked the gates of heaven and hell if not the creator trying to show us who is in charge?”

“I don’t know,” I said. But I thought back to Chad. There were other possibilities.

Then I told him why I’d come to him in a dream and that I was in a prison cell held by a witch who was going to turn me over to the king and the King’s Council so they could publicly hang me.

“That’s too bad,” he said.

“You know what they’ll say?” I asked. “They will say they’re showing how the son of Lucifer must bow to the king and King’s Council, as must Lucifer himself and all his demons. They are the rulers.”

“I don’t think they’ll say that, but I promise if they do, I will avenge you.”

“The way you just said that makes me think it won’t be about me.”

“How’s that?” he asked.

“You’ll avenge me if they insult you.”

“Well,” he said, “it will be for both of us. That make you feel better?”

“What would be best is if I didn’t hang at all.”

“That is a lot to ask,” he said. “You want me to break you out of prison?”

“A witch’s ranch prison. She’s not even part of the council. She just wants to sell me to them.”

“I’ll be making enemies of the King’s Council. I don’t know if I can afford those enemies just now. I think I’m going to have to pass.”

“You know you love making new enemies,” I said.

“I do love it,” he admitted.

His fingers tapped the throne’s arms while he thought it over. He sighed and leaned forward. “I’ll need you to do something for me in return.”

It was always tit for tat with the devil.

“All right,” I said. “I’m listening.”

He sighed. “Maybe if you can unlock the gates of hell, I could help you.”

“How am I supposed to do that? You want to go back to hell?”

“You know what I always say. Better to rule in hell than be ruled in heaven.”

“You aren’t in heaven.”

“The supernatural humans and the angels have an alliance. It’s hard for me to get anywhere. Too many of them and too few of us. We suffered heavy casualties in the Battle of Armageddon.”

“You miss it,” I said.

He shrugged. “A little.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll open hell up.”

I had no idea if it was even possible, but I did my best to sound like I did.

Lucifer drummed his fingers on the arm of his throne, considering. Each tap released a small puff of sulfurous smoke. “Very well. We have a deal. Return to your body. I’ll be along shortly.”

“How shortly?” I was thinking of Fluffy.

“Shortly,” he said.

He waved his hand, and the dream room in the dream castle began to dissolve around me.

“Wake up,” he commanded.

I jerked awake in my cell, paralyzed again. The stone walls seemed to press in closer, and the air felt thick with the residual magic of whatever binding spells the witch had placed on the room. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, could barely manage to blink.

Seconds ticked by. Then minutes.

Just as I was beginning to think that dream-Lucifer’s promise had been another lie, the temperature plummeted. Frost formed on the stone walls, spreading in intricate patterns. The wooden door began to smoke, not from fire but from intense cold.

The door exploded inward, pieces of it flying everywhere. Lucifer did love a dramatic entry into a room. He stood in the doorway. The suit he’d been wearing was replaced by black jeans, snakeskin boots, and a leather jacket. His hair, normally impeccable, looked windblown.

“You ready to make a jailbreak, son?”

“I can’t move until you break this spell.”

He prodded me. “You do look a bit stiff.”

“The spell,” I said.

He snapped his fingers, and the paralysis broke with an audible crack, like a limb torn from a tree in a storm. I gasped, flexing my fingers and toes as sensation flooded painfully back into my limbs.

“Thanks,” I managed to croak.

“Don’t mention it. Seriously, don’t. I’ve got a reputation to maintain.” He glanced down the hallway. “We should go.”

I staggered to my feet, legs tingling like I was being stabbed by pins and needles. “Fluffy first.”

Lucifer’s expression hardened. “Not part of our deal. I get you out, you unlock the gates of hell. That was the arrangement. There was nothing about the hellhound you have ruined with kindness.”

“Amended arrangement,” I countered. “I’m not leaving without him. I can’t unlock hell if I’m not alive.”

“He’s probably already dead,” Lucifer said.

“I need to know if he is. I’m not leaving him behind.”

“You are a lot of trouble,” Lucifer said. “The white sheep of the family.”

“The thing is, Dad, I don’t mind being the white sheep of the family.”

For a moment, the temperature in the room dropped even further. Ice crystals formed in the air between us, suspended like tiny daggers.

“That’s a terrible thing to say to me.”

“I can’t be what you want me to be.”

“All I want for you is to be happy corrupting human’s souls and growing evil wherever you can and helping lost souls see that they, too, have a purpose in the world. Do bad things whenever possible. Is that too much to ask?”

“I like people who are kind.”

He put his hands over his ears. “Those are the worst words a father can hear. We have a tradition in this family to uphold. I don’t want to give up on you, son, but you make it hard.”

“Can we just find my hellhound?”

“Fine. We’ll look for the mutt. But if the situation requires me to abandon you both, I will. Think of it as an example for you to follow the next time you feel the impulse to save someone or do some other ridiculously good thing.”

“Fine,” I said, pushing past him into the hallway.

The corridor outside my cell was dimly lit. Other cell doors lined the hallway, but no sounds came from behind them.

“This way,” Lucifer said, turning left. “I can sense most of the ranch’s layout. The animal pens are on the north side.”

We moved quickly through the warren of underground passages. Twice we had to duck into alcoves as guards passed by. Lucifer used some trick of shadow to make us nearly invisible. Eventually, we emerged into a wider corridor with actual windows that showed it was now night outside.

“Almost there,” Lucifer muttered. “The animal compound is just through those doors.”

Before we could reach them, a heavily muscled guard with scales covering half his face stepped around the corner. He was carrying what looked like a cattle prod, but it glowed with arcane energy.

He raised the weapon.

Lucifer made a casual flicking gesture, and the guard slammed against the wall, pinned there by invisible force.

“Good day,” my father said pleasantly, walking up to the immobilized man. “We’re looking for a hellhound. Big fellow answers to the ridiculous name of Fluffy. Seen him?”

The guard’s eyes filled with fear. “You’re, you’re—”

“No time for autographs,” Lucifer said. “Time to rip your heart out and eat it right in front of you if you don’t answer my question in two seconds. Where’s the beast?”

“It escaped.”

“When?”

“Just as we got the order to kill him,” the guard gasped. “Broke out of its cage.”

Got my message, I thought.

“Where did he go?” I asked.

“Out the north gate, I think. The witch was furious—sent a hunting party after it.”

I closed my eyes, concentrating. If Fluffy was still anywhere nearby, I might be able to reach him telepathically. I focused on our connection, pushing my thoughts outward. Fluffy. Come, boy. Come back.

For several agonizing seconds, there was nothing. Then I heard pounding paws.

“If I have to wait more than three seconds, I’m going to rip this guard’s heart out and eat it right in front of him.”

“Three, two, one.”

The guard screamed.

“I’m kidding,” Lucifer said.

Lucifer turned to me. “North gate. Now. We’ll meet your mutt halfway.”

“He’s not a mutt. Full-blooded hellhound. You ought to know.”

“No true hellhound would respond to the name Fluffy.”

“He’s different,” I admitted. “Sensitive.”

“Like you,” Lucifer said. “That’s just another word for weak. Both of you. I’m surprised you’ve lasted as long as you have.”

We ran through the building, Lucifer somehow knowing exactly which turns to take. I was still wobbly from the paralytic, but adrenaline kept me moving. We burst through a side door into the cool night air just as alarms began to sound behind us.

The north gate was visible about a hundred yards away, across an open yard dotted with what looked like animal enclosures. Halfway there, a spotlight caught us in its glare.

“Stop, or I will turn you to dust,” the witch’s voice boomed, amplified by magic.

I glanced back to see her standing on the roof of the main building, her hair whipping around her face. Behind her stood several armed guards and what appeared to be floating orbs of crackling energy.

“Maybe we’d better pick up our pace,” Lucifer growled, pulling me along.

“Get out of this light,” I said.

We both jerked to the right.

The first magical projectile hit the ground just behind us, sending up a shower of dirt and grass. The second came close enough that I felt its heat against my back.

“We’re not going to make it,” I gasped.

“Of course we are,” Lucifer said. “I refuse to be captured by a second-rate witch and her little thugs.”

The gate was still thirty yards away when a massive, dark shape vaulted over it from the outside. Fluffy was looking even larger and more terrifying than usual, his eyes glowing red in the darkness, his muzzle slick with blood.

As Fluffy made it to us, Lucifer raised both of his arms, and a red flame shot up into the sky, a burning ring of fire all around us, and the world shattered just beyond the flame.

For one disorienting moment, I felt like I was being pulled through the eye of a needle.

Then we were sprawled out in front of a gate to Lucifer’s ranch. There was a sign on the gate: Hell On Earth. Fluffy shook himself vigorously, spraying droplets of blood and slobber everywhere. Lucifer’s leather jacket was smoking slightly. I just lay there, trying not to vomit.

“Home, sweet home,” Lucifer said, getting to his feet.

“Thank you,” I managed to say, fighting nausea.

Fluffy nudged my face with his nose, which smelled strongly of dead rat. A smell that made me want to vomit again. I patted his head weakly.

“Now I have to find where Olive and my friends and the townspeople of Eden are.”

“Unlock the gates to hell,” he said. “I don’t want to have to send my collectors to force payment.”

Two demons arrived at the front gates then. They were very large and had only one very large eye on their forehead.  

“My monsters will show you to your room,” Lucifer said. “Tomorrow, you will pay your debt. In full. No family discount. If you can’t do what you said you could do, I’m afraid the penalty will be death. A father doesn’t like to put his children to death, but how else will they learn if they’re not punished?”

I didn’t bother pointing out that I would be dead and unable to learn anything. I was pretty sure this point hadn’t escaped his notice.

He disappeared.

Chapter Thirty

Technically, I wasn’t a prisoner in my father’s mansion, but the guards that “escorted” Fluffy and me to my room remained outside the door. I knew it wasn’t necessarily true that Olive and the others were in the high security prison in Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico. The truth was, they could be anywhere. The King’s Council probably had more than one high-security prison, given the heavy hand they ruled with. But I felt they were there, and I trusted my instincts. They were right except when they weren’t.

I went to the window. There were bars on it. Was that any way to treat a guest? I wasn’t going to get past those bars. I’d have a better chance with the guards. But not much better. They were big, one-eyed creatures who likely had cyclops blood. The cyclops were known for savage cruelty and cannibalistic tendencies.  

I tried calling Dread again.

I did have Fluffy. True. But even if we overpowered the cyclops—and that was a big if—we were sure to draw attention, which meant more demons and probably Lucifer himself. He would make good on his threats. That was one thing about Lucifer. He kept his threats. He might not keep his promises, but he always kept a threat.

I tried calling Dread again.

My brother showed up this time. He wore a suit, no tie, or even a shirt under a finely tailored sports coat. He had movie star, leading man, good looks, but these looks were just one of many he wore. Like my father, he had the power of illusion. The real him was a demon, red skin and swollen face and open wounds. It had occurred to me that my power of illusion might be inherited from my father.

“So it’s true,” Dread said, standing in front of me, looking angry.

“I’ve been calling you,” I said.

“So I’m supposed to just drop everything and come running because you decide to give me a call after five f-ing years?”

“That’s why you’ve been ignoring me? Your feelings are hurt?”

“I thought we were close!”

“We were. We are.”

“Not one word. Not even a message telling me you survived Armageddon. I got drunk for a week when I heard you were missing. I was in mourning. I didn’t even visit my ex-wives. Well, except for Penelope. She has always had a nurturing way of making love.”

I knew his getting drunk for a week wasn’t exactly out of his normal schedule, but I was touched that he’d mourned me. Fluffy had been trying to get Dread’s attention with tail wags and a circular dance. Dread finally bent and acknowledged him.

“You’re a bad-ass hellhound. Your master is thoughtless, but you are as bad-ass as ever.”

I told Dread about getting sent to another dimension the night after the battle ended and the night everyone in Eden had disappeared. He listened but seemed slightly suspicious of my explanation.

“You got away from fairies?” he asked. “No one gets away from fairies in Fairyland.”

“I had some help. A witch. Anyway, what seemed like a few days turned out to be five years.”

He nodded. “Typical fairy world. Time is different there.”

“So you didn’t try to come to Eden?” I asked.

“I tried. I couldn’t get there. No one has been able to. Not even Father. The whole mountain disappeared, even from supernaturals and angels and demons. It’s in some other dimension, I guess.”

“Lucifer wants me to open the gate to hell,” I said.

“You know where hell is?”

“So no one knows where heaven and hell are?” I asked. “I thought Lucifer and the demons just couldn’t get the gate to open.”

“That was how it started, but then it disappeared. Heaven, too. Just like Eden.”

“So that’s why he thinks I can open it. He thinks I can find it.”

“There are said to be thousands of dimensions. Anyway, even if you could find it, you’d have to get the gate open. No offense, but your power isn’t close to Michael’s or Lucifer’s. I hope you didn’t make a deal with him.”

“I did,” I admitted. “But that’s not why I called you.”

“You understand that just about every year when we get together to celebrate the day the so called fallen angels jumped and escaped the tyrant who ruled heaven and became free, there are some of us missing from the celebration. Generally because Father has thrown them in the bottomless pit of hell or killed them in some terrible way. He is not forgiving of debt, even by his own children.”

“He told me. I’ll deal with all that later. I need your help with something else.”

I told him why I’d called him. “Will you help me?”

“Of course. But I’ll need you to do something for me.”

That was how it usually worked in our family. I agreed.

I told him what I needed him to do. He sent out identifiers. It took him only about a minute to find what I asked him to find.

Dread, having the gift of teleportation, was able to teleport us out of Hell On Earth without any problem. We landed in Tokyo, seconds later.

Chapter Thirty-One

One moment, we were in Lucifer’s mansion in West Texas, and the next, we were standing in what was once the bustling Shinjuku district of Tokyo. Dread’s powers had always been impressive, but even I was surprised we’d made it more than halfway across the world without so much as a headache.

“Ta-da,” Dread said, spreading his arms with theatrical flair. “Tokyo. What’s left of it, anyway.”

I stared at the cityscape around us. The Tokyo I remembered had been a neon wonderland, a forest of skyscrapers and digital billboards that turned night into day. This Tokyo was not that Tokyo.

Many of the tallest buildings still stood, but they were blackened husks, their windows blown out, their upper floors occasionally missing entirely. Tokyo had been hit harder than Austin.

Everything had a faint glow to it. Not metaphorically—literally. The plants emitted a soft blue-green phosphorescence. Pools of standing water shimmered with an unnatural purple light. Even the air itself seemed to contain luminescent dust that swirled around us like fireflies. I saw this glow with my third eye. I didn’t think ordinaries would see it.

“It’s glowing,” I said.

Dread snapped his fingers, and we were both wearing gas masks. “Radiation will do that,” Dread said.

“Is it okay to be out here?”

“You’re part demon, I’m all demon, and your canine is from hell. We’ll be fine.” The masks disappeared.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“The aesthetic has improved. Tokyo was always too clean for my taste. This has a certain apocalyptic charm.”

Fluffy’s hackles rose as he scanned our surroundings.

Like Austin, some buildings were mostly without damage and some were rubble. We walked down what had once been a major boulevard. Hotel signs flickered weakly. The Keio Plaza. The Park Hyatt. The Century Southern Tower. The signs must be working off a generator.

I saw a sign for the Wandering Way. I also saw that I could only see the sign with my third eye. Ordinaries wouldn’t see it at all.

“They can’t see the sign?” I asked.

“Nope,” Dread said. “Can’t see the building either. Not really.”

“Invisible?” I asked.

“They see a building but not a hotel. All they know is that the building scares them. They don’t know why, but they feel the danger like something too hot to touch. They know creatures were created or released from dark places by the nukes.”

“So they keep away.”

“The hotel isn’t the only place that uses the magic. Could be a gang headquarters or even some government building.”

Fluffy stopped suddenly, his massive body going rigid. I followed his gaze down a side street where something large moved in the shadows between buildings.

“What is that?” I whispered.

Dread squinted. “The local wildlife. I think we should go down another street.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” I said.

Before we could retreat, the creature emerged into a shaft of moonlight. It was a lizard—but not a cute little lizard wandering into TV commercials. This was the size of a city bus, its scales gleaming with that same eerie bioluminescence of the giant plants (think redwood tree size) that were down that side street. Its head was disproportionately large, with far too many teeth protruding at odd angles from its jaws. It moved with surprising grace for something so massive, its claws leaving deep gouges in the asphalt.

This world was out of proportion. It looked pretty much the same in some places, but in others it was vastly changed.

“Don’t move,” Dread breathed. “Their vision is not great, though their smell and hearing make up for it. In my experience, not moving is generally a solid strategy when faced with giant mutant reptiles.”

I wondered where he got his experience, but thinking about that went right out of my mind when the lizard’s head swiveled in our direction, its nostrils flaring. Multiple slitted eyes—it had five, arranged in an asymmetrical pattern across its face. They blinked independently of each other. I found the blinking hypnotic. Then I realized it was actually hypnotic. I froze.

Fluffy let out a low, excited whine, his entire body trembling with the desire to charge.

“No,” I hissed at him. “That is not a rat or monkey.”

“Better,” Fluffy said. “Better. Better. Better.”

That was the hellhound in him talking. Foolish hellhound. Never defeated in a fight hellhound because he had never faced a giant lizard.

I broke free of the hypnotic effect of the beast and was careful not to look into its eyes.

“We are not hunting mutant lizards,” I said, laying down the law. “We need to save Olive. You want to save Olive, don’t you?”

He grumbled something. My guess was that he grumbled he wanted to kill a lizard and save Olive. It was a “both things can be true” scenario.

The lizard took a step in our direction; its tongue—forked and glowing a sickly yellow—flicked out to taste the air.

“Let’s walk very slowly over to the alley across the street,” Dread whispered.

We began to edge toward the alley, moving with exaggerated care. The lizard cocked its head. It did have excellent hearing. Another step brought it fully into the intersection, its massive tail sweeping behind it and demolishing what remained of a small convenience store.

We were just a few feet from the relative safety of the alley when Fluffy made his move. With a powerful lunge, he broke away and charged straight at the lizard, barking with hellish glee.

“Fluffy, no!” I shouted, but it was too late.

The lizard, startled by the sudden attack, reared back on its hind legs, towering nearly twenty feet in the air. Fluffy skidded to a halt, momentarily reconsidering his life choices.

“Into the alley.” Dread grabbed my arm and yanked me into the narrow passage. “Your hellhound’s lizard food, I’m afraid.”

“I’m not leaving him.” I said.

“He’s a hellhound. He’ll be fine.”

The standoff between Fluffy and the lizard had escalated into a bizarre circling ritual, with the massive reptile trying to get a bead on the much smaller but far more agile hellhound. Fluffy darted in, nipped at the creature’s legs, then danced away before the massive jaws could close on him. One misstep, and Fluffy would be lizard food.

I pressed myself against the alley wall, torn between running to safety and going to Fluffy’s aid. Before I could decide, the situation took yet another turn.

A second giant lizard emerged from another street, attracted by the commotion. And a third. And a fourth. Within moments, Fluffy found himself surrounded by a small army of mutant reptiles, all converging on the intersection of one hellhound. The others were not quite as large as the first, no doubt, weighed a few tons.

“Fluffy!” I shouted. “Here. Now.”

To my immense relief, he decided to obey me, which I thought had more to do with getting away from the lizards without openly backing down than actually obeying me. With a disappointed huff, he turned and sprinted toward our hiding place, moving so fast he was barely more than a blur.

He shot into the alley just as the first lizard lunged. Fortunately, he was much too large to move into the alley. Multiple house-sized reptiles crashed into him from behind. This stirred a primitive reaction similar to a scene from the Housewives of Fancy City; they all attacked each other. Lizard brain indeed. Thank the gods for it.

“Run now,” Dread suggested, already halfway down the alley. “Before they sort themselves out.”

We ran, Fluffy keeping pace beside me (which was basically trotting for him,) looking far too pleased with himself.

“That was not helpful,” I told him as we emerged onto another street, this one mercifully lizard-free.

“Fun,” Fluffy replied. “Fun lizard. Like lizard.”

“I know, tastes like chicken,” I said.

“Taste like lizard,” he said, and yucked it up.

Dread led us through a labyrinth of back streets and ruined shopping arcades. Occasionally, we passed clusters of glowing mushrooms taller than a man. Once, we had to detour around what appeared to be a perfectly preserved shrine, untouched by the nuclear blast.

“There,” Dread said finally, pointing to a building that stood on the corner of what had once been a fashionable shopping district.

Unlike the structures around it, the hotel appeared completely undamaged. I recognized it as the one that occasionally visited Eden and had been there while the Battle of Armageddon was raging. Above the entrance, a neon sign flickered between Japanese, English, and several scripts I couldn’t identify, but which I understood all meant the same thing: The Wandering Way.

We approached the entrance, Fluffy padding along beside us, still alert for any sign of the giant lizards. As we reached the revolving doors, they spun faster, as if inviting us in.

“One more thing,” Dread said, placing a hand on my shoulder. “The hotel manager isn’t the one you met. This one was hired by the King’s Council. When she sees you, she’ll likely attack. I think she’s a magician. She will certainly call them even if she pretends not to recognize you.”

We stepped into the revolving door and entered The Wandering Way hotel.

Chapter Thirty-Two

The hotel looked different than it had when I’d seen it a couple of weeks ago (to me). Over five years ago to the hotel. There were two guards at the entrance. They were fashionably dressed in suits and looked appropriately threatening. Neither had visible weapons. Warlocks had weapons they could make out of thin air, though. The clerk and the manager, both women, were behind the front desk.

“Welcome to The Wandering Way hotel,” the manager said. She recognized me. Dread had been right. “I’m afraid we don’t allow pets. Hotel rules.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “He’s not a pet.”

She smiled. “He looks like a pet.”

“Pets are sweet companions you sit on the sofa with and feed popcorn to while you watch a movie. That kind of thing. Fluffy will tear your heart out if I give the word. He’s a hellhound. He’s survived in one of the worse places in the universe.”

Although if I was being completely honest, I would have admittedhe would sit on the sofa and loved to be fed popcorn while watching a movie.

“Rules are rules.” She pulled a scroll out from under the desk. She shook it, and it opened, and it was about ten feet long. “These are the rules as established by the king and his council and previous owners.”

“They own the hotel?” I asked. “The King’s Council, I mean.”

“They confiscated it from the former owners just before they died of unnatural causes. Rule number 122 states that if I ask you to leave and you do not leave, I may kill you.”

“That seems like an overly aggressive policy,” I said.

“You can still leave,” she pointed out.

“Before we get to destroying each other,” I said. “I’d like to share something, if you don’t mind.”

The manager’s eyebrow arched. She was a tall woman with skin the color of polished mahogany and hair cut in a perfect geometric bob. Her suit was impeccable.

“By all means, Prince,” she said.

One of the warlocks—the taller one with a thin scar running from his left eye to his jaw—whispered something to the other. Warlocks whispering was never a good sign.

“I read about your chromometer,” I said. “Wow. That is something.”

“Wow?” Dread asked.

I ignored him.

The manager’s smile froze for just a second, but Dread and I saw it. She might as well have tripped. “The famous library of Eden is a magical library, I’m told. Secrets hidden there. So you’ve heard of the chronometer. What is your point?”

“Most libraries are magical,” I said.

“That’s your point?” she asked.

The two warlocks took steps away from each other, spreading out.

“A device that allows the hotel to slip between places, times, and dimensions,” I said. “But fragile. It’s behind the mirror in room 312. Dread will rip it out, and this hotel will never leave this spot. It will become nothing special. It will—”

“I understand,” she said, a little testily, I thought.

Fluffy growled low in his throat, his eyes fixed on the warlocks. I could feel his muscles tensing, ready to spring.

“Go now, please, Dread.”

He disappeared.

The manager kept her green eyes on me. “A teleporter. Very impressive.”

“Always good in a pinch.”

“Stop,” the manager commanded the warlocks, who were still inching toward us.

They did as they were ordered. Not the brightest bulbs on the tree if they thought they could sneak up on a hellhound.

“It is my duty to point out that you have already broken fifty-two hotel rules,” she said. “Would you like me to recite them?”

“No.”

“It’s no trouble,” she said.

“Still no.”

“You may leave,” she said. “Though that option is nearly gone.”

“Dread will shatter the machine at the first sign of magical aggression,” I said. “We can communicate telepathically. And if that happens, you’ll be stuck here. And Lucifer has already promised to avenge my murder if I don’t return. He’s in a particularly foul mood these days. He doesn’t like living on the surface as much as he thought he would. I know you probably have a hotline to the council. Go ahead and call them. See what they can do for you now.”

The manager’s face remained impassive, but I could see calculations happening behind those green eyes.

“Or,” I said, “you can help us get the townspeople you helped imprison back to Eden.”

“We were used to transporting them,” she said. “We had no choice. It was not something I approved of, but the hotel must survive.”

I was pretty sure she wasn’t human. She seemed part of the hotel. An AI. Could AI lie? Was she just telling me what she thought I wanted to hear so she could give herself and her hotel a better chance of capturing us or killing us?”

“Get us back to Eden, and we’ll call it even.”

“Under the circumstances, we have a deal, as long as the hotel is only involved in transport.”

“We have a deal.”

“Take us to Carlsbad Caverns,” I said. “Some place where the hotel will be hidden but close to the prison.”

“Prepare the hotel for departure,” the hotel manager ordered the clerk.

“We have been unable to return to Eden since we took the townspeople,” the clerk said.

“She’s right,” the hotel manager said. “No one has been able to return.”

“If you’re carrying us, you can go back,” I said.

“For now, prepare for departure to Carlsbad Prison.”

I called Dread back to the lobby.

“This is a bad idea,” he said. “We’ll need an army to get them out of Carlsbad.”

“Terrible idea,” I agreed. “But unless you know where we can get an army, it will have to do.”

“That’s what I like about you,” he said. “A bad idea doesn’t stop you from doing what you’ve decided to do. You’ll likely have a short life, but you will keep things interesting.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“You heard the part about a short life?” he asked.

“I’d rather have good ideas,” I said. “But bad ones are the best I can do most days.”

He shrugged. “Off to Carlsbad it is.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

The hotel manager set the hotel down behind a hill in the desert by Carlsbad Caverns, which was once a big tourist attraction and was now a prison for the most dangerous criminals, according to the King’s Council, in America. I did not trust that they were the most dangerous. Maybe they were the most dangerous to the king and his King’s Council.

I did wonder why they hadn’t killed the citizens of Eden rather than keep them in the prison. I was sure there was a reason and that it wasn’t out of the kindness of their hearts.

“This is as far as we go,” the hotel manager said. “Any closer, and the hotel won’t be able to keep them from discovering us. The prison is about a mile into that canyon.”

“We’ll be back within a couple of hours,” I said.

“We will give you two hours, and if you haven’t returned, we will move the hotel. We cannot be seen here. The king will punish us.”

“We’ll be back,” I said. I was looking forward to meeting this king once we got the people of Eden back to Eden.

“Two hours,” she reminded me.

Dread, Fluffy, and I walked off toward the hotel in the canyon. I asked Dread if he could get us in, but he said there was no way. There was a shield of magic around the prison, and teleportation was impossible.

“I guess we’re just going to have to walk in through the front gate, then,” I said.

We got to a hill where we could watch the entrance and watched. There were guard towers and guards in those towers. We were trying to come up with some plan to get in when dust from the road behind us rose up, indicating a vehicle in the distance. It was still a long way off.

The dust inspired the idea.

“We could go back to the ranch by Austin and get the Cadillac Deville and drive into the prison,” I said.

“That’s another bad plan. They’ll be shooting at us. The whole place will go to red alert before we even get there.”

“You have a point,” I said. “Can you get us to the car?”

“Against my better judgment,” he said.

He transported us to the grassy lot on the ranch where all the vehicles were parked. There were guards out on the property with rifles. The cars were pretty shot up, but the wounded bodies had been cleared away. The Cadillac Deville had likely been hit, but it didn’t show because it had some kind of shield. That was encouraging.

I tried opening it, but it didn’t open until I said, “It’s me.”

“Sorry, man,” he said. “I was in sleep mode.”

The doors unclicked.

“Hold it right there,” a voice said. The man who spoke had a handgun pointed at us. He was holding a two-way radio. “I’ve got them,” he said. “They’re at the car.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

“Does he have us?” I asked Dread.

“He’s got the gun.”

“He does have the gun.”

“You’re surrounded,” the guard with the gun said.

“Do we look surrounded?” I asked Dread.

“We do not.”

Fluffy was not in any way involved in this conversation. I could hear him whistling in his mind, though, and I knew what that meant. He often whistled when he was trying to pretend like he wasn’t paying attention. Like when I was ordering him to sit sometimes or telling him, when he was asking for more food, that he had just finished eating two minutes earlier.

I started to say, “Put down your gun—” to the man.

I didn’t get to finish the sentence. Fluffy leaped at the man and bit off his head. He chewed it and then spit it out.

“You’ve got to quit doing that,” I said.

“That does not taste like chicken,” he said, and sniggered.

Soldiers were rushing across the yard. We jumped into the Cadillac Deville. Bullets pinged against the back of the car. Some hit the windshield, but the windshield didn’t crack.

“I’m going to need a new paint job, man,” the Deville said. “Where to?”

I told him, and a second later, we were on the highway a couple of miles outside of the prison. Dread and I talked over our options as if they had changed, but the Deville hadn’t really changed anything except we could, if the magic around the prison wasn’t strong, land the Deville inside.

I could feel the magic around the prison was strong, though. We weren’t going to get in that way. Maybe we could crash the gate. Or maybe it would repel us, and the prison would have some protections we didn’t know about, and we would be eliminated by weapons I couldn’t see.

Fluffy said, “Coming.”

I looked back behind us and saw the bus coming.

“A school bus,” Dread said.

“Can you see inside?” I asked Dread.

“Nine prisoners or ten prisoners. Men and women. An armed guard and a driver eating a hamburger while he drives.”

“That’s not safe,” I said.

“Hamburger,” Fluffy said, excitedly.

“I think we need to catch a ride in with them,” I said. “How about you use that ability to change looks to look like one of those guards up on the towers?”

“Those are some drab and ugly uniforms.”

“Not a fashion show.”

“Fine,” he said.

He changed and got out of the Deville and stepped onto the highway. Dread, dressed as a guard, waved the school bus down. It didn’t slow down one bit. In fact, it sped up. It sped past him.

Dread said, “I guess we’ll have to do this the hard way.”

He transported onto the bus. I hit the gas and caught up to the bus about a minute later. Fluffy jumped out of the Deville and I jumped out onto Fluffy. I shouted to the Deville to drive to the hotel.

I heard gunfire from inside the bus. Fluffy got me close enough I could jump from his back onto the bus. I told Fluffy to go back to the hotel and make sure the hotel manager didn’t leave until we got back. He was reluctant but turned around and ran the other way. He would discourage the manager from leaving if we were late.

I scrambled across the bus roof, feeling the hot metal burning through my jeans as the vehicle swerved wildly beneath me. Gunshots rang out from inside. I ran to the front and swung down into the folding doors. The force of my kick slammed them opened, and I dropped inside.

Dread had the guard pinned against the back door, the man’s rifle now in Dread’s hands. The driver was frantically trying to control the bus while simultaneously reaching for what looked like an alarm button on the dashboard. The prisoners, chained to their seats, were shouting and swearing, and some were pleading to be let go.

I lunged toward the driver, who shoved me away. We veered off the road, heading straight for a boulder the size of a small car.

I reached the driver just as his finger brushed the alarm button. I grabbed his wrist, twisted, and heard something break. He screamed. I shoved him aside, grabbed the wheel, and yanked it hard to the left. We missed the boulder by a good six inches.

“Sorry about that,” I called back to the prisoners.

The former driver was coming toward me, and I swung around and kicked him. Unfortunately for him, the doors that would have kept him from falling out of the bus had been busted. He fell back and out onto the highway.

I got the bus back onto the road while Dread finished subduing the guard. By subduing, I mean he’d knocked the man unconscious. I grabbed the driver’s hat, which he’d thoughtfully left behind when he exited the bus.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” I announced to our audience of prisoners, “there’s been a slight change in today’s itinerary. Instead of a one-way trip to imprisonment, you’re getting a round-trip ticket to freedom. Provided, of course, that you don’t raise any alarms when we arrive. I’m going to need a consensus. My brother will show you the way out if you don’t wish to participate.”

The prisoners exchanged glances, an understandable mixture of hope and suspicion in those glances.

“Why should we trust you?” called out a woman from the middle of the bus. She was rail-thin with close-cropped gray hair.

“I’m all that stands between you and the accommodations ahead, which I hear are pretty awful. We obviously aren’t working for the people running this prison. We have that in common.”

“You’re the librarian, aren’t you?” she said. “I seen your wanted posters.”

“Yes.”

“They said you were dead.”

“In the immortal words of Mark Twain, The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

“They also said you betrayed humanity during Armageddon,” someone else said.

“The king and his council have said a lot of things,” I replied. “You believe them?”

The woman stood as much as her chains would allow. “My name is Commander Eliza Ross. I led the Southwestern Freedom Coalition against Warlord Tanner in Arizona. And hell no, I don’t believe the council.”

“Warlord Tanner,” Dread said. “The Butcher of Phoenix?”

“The King’s Council backed him,” she said. “Supplied him with weapons, magical support, even creatures from their menageries. We fought anyway. For three years, we kept him contained.” Her voice hardened. “Then the council sent in specialists. They rounded us up, called us terrorists, and sentenced us without trial.”

“And now you’re on your way to Carlsbad,” I finished for her.

She nodded. “Do you know what they do there?”

“I have my suspicions.”

“It’s not just a prison,” she said. “They’re harvesting something from the inmates. You only go there if you’ve got something they want. Information or supernatural abilities.”

That got my full attention. “Harvesting them how?”

“All I know is there are stories. A lot of their prisoners die. Especially near the end of their sentences. A lot go missing. They’re being experimented on.”

Harvesting made me think of The Harvester, and that made me think of what he’d been doing. Taking souls for their spark to feed the god of gods halfway across the universe. Maybe The Harvester was still around.

“I’m going to get everyone out,” I said, making eye contact with as many prisoners as I could while still keeping the bus on the road. “Everyone. But I need your cooperation when we arrive.”

“What’s your plan?” Eliza asked.

“I just told you,” I said.

“He never has a plan,” Dread shouted from the back of the bus. “Even after five years, he comes back, and he’s just the same. No plan. But his instincts do usually get the job done. I have to admit that.”

“Inspiring,” Eliza said, sounding uninspired.

The entrance to Carlsbad Caverns National Park came into view ahead—or what used to be the entrance to what used to be the park and was now a prison. There was a massive gate spanning the road, with guard towers on either side and what appeared to be magical wards shimmering faintly around the perimeter. I could see them with my third eye—layers of protection spells, alarm systems, and something in the dark that even my third eye couldn’t see.

That added to an already significant worry.

“We’re getting close,” I said. “Look miserable and defeated.”

“That won’t be difficult,” someone muttered from the back.

I straightened my cap and created the illusion of the man whose place I’d taken. I wasn’t a shapeshifter like my half-brother, but I could make the guards see someone who resembled the driver. As long as no one actually knew him and looked more closely than people usually did, we’d beall right.

I looked in the rearview mirror. Dread had changed into the guard he’d overcome, but the way he stood, the posture, was all wrong.

“Look more slovenly,” I told him.

“I’m a demon prince, not an actor,” he grumbled, but he slouched.

Eliza leaned forward. “Get us out of here, and we’ll owe you a debt. You’ll need help getting out of this region.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, slowing the bus as we approached the first checkpoint. “For now, let’s focus on not getting killed in the next five minutes.”

The gate loomed larger as we approached. Two guards stepped out from the guardhouse. One motioned for us to stop. I could see magical scanning equipment pointed at the bus—spells designed to detect unauthorized persons or magical signatures.

I took a deep breath and put on my best bored-prison-transport-driver face.

“Showtime,” I said, bringing the bus to a halt.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Aguard approached my window. He was a burly man with a nose that was crooked from breaks, a lumpy face, and a cauliflower ear. He had the look of a failed boxer.

“You’re late,” he growled, checking a clipboard. “Transport 447 was due thirty minutes ago.”

I shrugged with traditional government employee indifference. “Blowout on Route 62. Had to change the tire in this heat.” Then I added in a disgusted voice, “Plus, these freedom fighters kept singing protest songs. Why are they always such terrible singers? It’s like a requirement for being a freedom fighter.”

The guard grunted. I imagined it was his response to most things. He signaled to two more guards, who emerged from a small concrete building beside the gate. All three were armed with both conventional weapons—assault rifles that looked military grade—and what I recognized as enchanted batons capable of delivering magical shocks, the kind that could incapacitate even supernatural beings.

“Move ’em out,” the first guard ordered.

I nodded to Dread, who played his part by shouting at the prisoners with impressive conviction. “On your feet, terrorist scum! Single file, hands visible at all times.”

The prisoners shuffled out, their chains rattling as they descended the bus steps. Eliza caught my eye briefly as she passed. I gave her the slightest nod. Above us, two guards manned watchtowers that flanked the entrance to the caverns, their scoped rifles pointed toward the horizon. Occasionally, they’d glance down at us, but they seemed more concerned with external threats than the routine delivery of new inmates.

The three ground-level guards arranged the prisoners in a line. They were quick to shove and curse but careless, clearly not expecting any trouble from a group of shackled rebels or their seemingly ordinary transport team.

“Prisoners accounted for,” the clipboard guard said, counting heads. “Take ’em to processing, then down to level three.”

“They’ve already been processed.”

“Well, we’re going to process them again because that’s what we always do. You don’t like it? Look for another job.”

“Got it,” I said.

He turned away to sign something on his clipboard. I caught Dread’s eye and nodded toward the watchtowers.

“Hey,” I said loudly to the guards, “mind if I use your facilities? Been a long drive.”

“Guard shack’s got a bathroom,” the first guard said, pointing to the concrete building. “Make it quick.”

I walked toward the shack, moving past Dread and whispering, “Now.”

One moment, Dread was standing beside the prisoners, and the next, he was gone. I’d gotten used to his disappearing that way, but I could see some prisoners were shaken by it. It was a wondrous gift. He was a lucky demon.

I reached the guard shack and slipped inside, counting seconds in my head. I’d barely reached three when I heard a muffled thud from outside, followed by a shout of alarm.

“What the hell was that?” one of the guards yelled.

I peeked through the window to see them staring at something on the ground near one of the watchtowers. A body lay crumpled there, limbs at unnatural angles. Before the guards could react further, there was another thud as the second watchtower guard plummeted to the earth.

“Oopsie,” Dread’s voice came from directly behind me, making me jump.

“A little warning next time,” I hissed.

He shrugged. “Time to go, bro.”

“You were supposed to incapacitate them, not drop them from the tower.”

“They’re incapacitated.”

We hurried back outside. The three guards had gathered together, guns raised. One was on the radio. They had most of the prisoners covered, but Eliza had gotten behind them with two others.

I gave Eliza a nod. She and the other prisoners rushed the guards. Dread and I moved faster. No chains. I tackled the guard with the radio, driving him to the ground before he could get his call in for help. Dread picked up another guard and threw him against the concrete wall of the guard shack. Demon strength.

The third guard managed to get a shot off, but Eliza, despite her shackles, executed a perfect spin kick that sent it flying from his hands.

“Where did you learn to do that?” I asked, impressed, as I wrestled my guard’s arms behind his back.

“Former special forces before Armageddon,” she said.

Within minutes, all three guards were subdued. We dragged them into the guard shack and used their own restraints to secure them. Dread retrieved the watchtower guards—one unconscious, one moaning softly with what looked like a broken leg—and added them to our collection.

“Keys?” I asked, looking at the shackled prisoners.

Dread held up a ring of keys he’d taken from one of the guards.  “Already ahead of you, brother.”

As Dread unlocked the prisoners’ restraints, I stripped one of the guards and put on his uniform. It was a tight fit, but it would have to do. Dread didn’t bother changing clothes—he simply altered his appearance to perfectly mimic the guard with the clipboard, down to the crooked nose and perpetual scowl.

Eliza rubbed her wrists where the shackles had been.

I distributed the guards’ weapons among the former prisoners who knew how to use them and kept the ID of the guard I’d subdued and the radios we’d taken off the guards. I asked if anyone had any skills in technological systems. One of the young men, Tim, said he had mad skills, which was why he was here in prison. I handed him one of the radios and asked him to go into the guards’ station and do what he could to find the Edenites and call me as soon as he found them.

I asked another prisoner to act as guard and lookout in case other guards came up. I asked if any of them had magical abilities, and one of the old men said he’d once been a magician. There was a witch and several telepaths.

I asked the magician to be a magician again.

“I’ll try,” he said. “I’m out of practice.”

“Do what you can to dismantle the wards and other protective spells. I don’t want to get caught up in magic when we make our move to get out of here.”

“We need to get going,” Eliza said. “Someone’s going to check in with one of these guards, and they’ll know something is wrong when they don’t get a response.”

We marched toward the cavern entrance, our newly armed rebels now posing as additional guards escorting prisoners. The entrance had been heavily modified from its tourist days (I’d been to the caverns once when I was tracking a skinwalker)—reinforced steel doors had replaced the visitor center, and magical wards shimmered faintly around the perimeter, visible only to my third eye.

A scanner beside the door required a guard’s ID card. I swiped the one I’d taken from my uniform’s previous owner, and the massive doors slid open with a hydraulic hiss. Beyond them was a large elevator.

As we filed into the elevator, one of the freed prisoners—a wiry man with intricate tattoos covering his neck and hands—leaned toward me. “They’ve got demon guards here. And a demon warden.”

“Do you know his name? The warden?” I asked, pressing the button for the deepest level.

“A demon who fell out of favor with Lucifer,” the man replied. “Word among the prisoners is that he was working for the alien gods. Lucifer discovered his treachery and punished him with banishment. He ended up here, running this prison for the king.”

“His name?” I asked.

“Asmodeus,” the prisoner whispered, making a warding gesture with his tattooed fingers.

“Crap,” I said.

“That is not good news,” Dread said, his voice unusually tight.

“We’ll be all right,” I said.

“I may have had something to do with Lucifer discovering Asmodeus’s treachery,” Dread admitted. “He’s known for his creative tortures.”

“Okay,” I admitted. “That is not good news.”

The elevator began its descent, the lights flickering as we dropped deeper into the earth. The temperature dropped noticeably.

“Define something to do with,” I said.

Dread winced. “I may have been the one who reported him. And testified against him. And suggested his punishment. And laughed when they carried him out.”

“Definitely not good news,” I said

“There’s this one torture I’ve heard he has called The Endless Mirror Maze. It’s a labyrinth where each reflective surface shows the victim’s worst memories and fears. The mirrors create physical manifestations of the fears that pursue the victim. No one survives. They are all driven mad. He’s supposed to taunt them as things happen to them. You know that scratchy voice of his is so irritating. Sounds like a needle on one of those old record players scratching. Before your time, bro.”

The elevator chimed cheerfully, announcing our arrival at the lowest level. The doors slid open to reveal a vast, dimly lit cavern that had been transformed into a high-security prison complex. Cells had been carved directly into the rock walls, their iron bars glowing with enchantments. Guards patrolled metal catwalks that crisscrossed the open space. And in the center, floating over a raised platform that gave him a view of the entire operation, sat a figure on what was made to look like a gold throne.

Even from this distance, I could tell it was Asmodeus. No human had horns that curved quite that way. He was monstrously obese, his bloated form spilling over the sides of his massive throne like melting wax. Rolls of grayish flesh cascaded down his body, each fold dotted with tiny, blinking eyes. His jowls hung to his chest. His mouth was as wide as his face. The horns that protruded from his temples gleamed like polished obsidian, curving upward before twisting back toward his skull.

“He hasn’t changed a bit,” I said.

“Looks like he’s lost a few pounds,” Dread said. “Maybe he’ll thank me for helping him get free of Lucifer. Now maybe he can be his own demon.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” I said.

“You never know.”

“I know.”

“But you don’t.”

“I think I do.”

He just gave one of those Dread shrugs. He knew I hated shrugs because they were mysterious to me. He was doing it just to irritate me.

“You don’t.”

“Let’s just get out of here as quickly as we can,” I said.

Chapter Thirty-Six

“Ithink,” I said to Dread, “we need to get over to the other side, and then we need a distraction.”

We walked across the main common area, a cavernous space carved from the living rock of Carlsbad, with stalactites still hanging from the ceiling like petrified tears. Artificial lighting—sickly yellow-green fluorescents—cast everything in a jaundiced glow. Even a young Halle Berry would have looked bad under that glow.

The smell hit me immediately. Beneath the expected prison odors of sweat, urine, and industrial disinfectant was something else—sulfur and ozone, the unmistakable scent of demonic presence, mixed with something sweeter and more sterile that I recognized as angelic essence. (This was unexpected; angels or more likely mixed bloods—human and angel—were in this prison).

About a hundred prisoners milled around in the commons. They wore matching gray jumpsuits with numbers stenciled across the backs, but that’s where the uniformity ended. I’d say at least a dozen were demons and the rest mostly human but not ordinaries. The bands glowed with inscriptions I recognized as binding runes—magic meant to suppress their supernatural powers. One particularly massive demon, skin the color of dried blood, paced near the far wall, his shoulders hunched and head lowered like a caged bull. Every few seconds, he would test his bands, straining against them until they glowed white.

“Power dampeners,” Dread whispered, nodding toward the bands. “Nasty. Makes you feel like you’re trying to breathe underwater. Lucifer put them on me once when I had done something he didn’t like. He made me powerless for a week that felt like a year.”

I saw her over in the corner, an angel. She sat alone on a bench, her wings—once glorious, I imagined—now molting and gray, bound close to her back with the same enchanted metal as the demons wore. Her face was beautiful. When she looked up and our eyes met, I felt a jolt of recognition. She had been fighting next to Michael at the Battle of Armageddon. How had she fallen so far that she ended up in this underground prison?

Guards patrolled the perimeter and crisscrossed the room, moving with the casual cruelty of men who enjoyed having power over others. They carried those enchanted batons prominently, occasionally triggering small sparks of magic from the tips, just to remind everyone who was in charge. Many had scars or magical modifications—eyes enhanced to see in the dark, skin hardened against attack, fingers that elongated into claws. These magical modifications would have required surgery.

I kept our group moving, trying to look like I knew where we were going. Eliza and the others maintained their prisoner act, heads down, shuffling along behind us. The real guards barely glanced our way—just another delivery of fresh meat to them.

As we moved through the commons, conversations hushed momentarily, then resumed. I saw prisoners evaluating the newcomers, measuring their worth, their threat level, their potential as allies or victims or enemies. A few faces showed a flicker of recognition when they saw Eliza. I thought a lot of the prisoners were rebels. Rebels against whom, I wasn’t sure.

We were halfway across the space when I felt the weight of a particular gaze. Looking up, I saw Asmodeus had fixed his attention on us from his elevated throne. His primary eyes—yellow with horizontal pupils like a goat’s—narrowed. The secondary eyes dotting his flesh blinked rapidly; they seemed to be trying to catch us in a clear light.

“He’s watching us,” I whispered to Dread.

“Don’t make eye contact,” Dread replied

I looked up at all those eyes. “That’s kind of impossible.”

“Block your thoughts. He’s pretty good at picking through a roomful of thoughts.”

I tried to empty my mind, which was kind of like being told not to think about pink elephants. I thought about not thinking.

The demon shifted on his throne, folds of flesh rippling like disturbed lake water. He raised a hand the size of a dinner plate. I heard him summoning shadow demons. I’d only heard about them. I’d never actually seen one until then.

Two of them appeared on either side of the gigantic Asmodeus. They wore black robes with woven cord belts. Very stylish in the demon world. In the stories, it was said they could inhabit the body of any human and become that human. The dynamic force that existed in every human would leave, but the body would go on until the shadow demon decided to leave it.

“Time for that distraction,” I said.

I started shaking the hands of prisoners whether they wanted to or not. “Hi, nice to meet you. I’m the antichrist. I’m back.”

Word spread fast.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The antichrist who had been missing for five years. The antichrist who was responsible for Armageddon and also for the alien gods (not even really gods) who almost conquered all humans and who were ultimately stopped by the supernatural leaders. This same antichrist who was also responsible for the launch of nuclear weapons.

For five years, the king and his high council had made me the scapegoat for the destruction of the world. Most of the prisoners in this prison were supernaturals and had known there were angels and demons and magical creatures in the world, but they still believed that I, the antichrist (although I saw myself as the anti-antichrist because I had tried my hardest to stop it from happening) was responsible for the end of it all.

And here he was. Here I was.

It started as a whisper from somewhere in the crowd. “Murderer” “Destroyer” “Death demon” until the whispers became a wave that crashed through the cavernous room.

The first shout came from a burned man with radiation scars covering half his face. “It’s the antichrist, the destroyer of worlds.”

The prison erupted. It was like someone had thrown a bomb into the room. There was a surge of bodies toward me, a surge of angry faces. The guards on the catwalks reached for their weapons, confused by the sudden chaos. But others stepped in front of me, in front of the surge.

“Hail Satan’s offspring!” bellowed a demon with skin like obsidian and eyes that glowed ember-red. He dropped to one knee, bowing his head. “The Prince of Darkness returns.”

I was grateful there were some in the crowd who weren’t yelling that I should be torn apart, hung, then roasted over a fire, have gasoline poured in my eyes and such things, but I wasn’t willing to accept taking on the prince of darkness title. I was willing to let the demons protect me.

A fight was exactly what we needed.

Prisoners started shoving each other. The two camps, those who wanted to protect me and those who wanted to destroy me, crashed into each other. Improvised weapons appeared as if by magic, which was possibly the case. A man with glowing green veins tackled one of the kneeling demons. A group of humans who’d been playing cards moments before now stood back-to-back, makeshift knives held outward as they tried to navigate toward an exit.

Asmodeus rose from his throne, his massive form becoming even larger as he expanded with rage. The tiny eyes embedded in his flesh all widened simultaneously, and when he spoke, his voice penetrated every corner of the cavern despite the chaos.

“Prisoners, here’s your chance for freedom. Bring me the antichrist and his brother, and I will free you.”

“Kill him, kill him.”

It was hard to tell if they wanted to kill me or the warden or both.

“Liar,” some started chanting.

The consensus was unanimous. Asmodeus was a liar. He held up his hands. The chanting didn’t stop.

“No pudding for any of you tonight!” Asmodeus shouted. “And I’ve got more forms for you to fill out. Really long ones with obscure and meaningless questions.”

There was some groaning but more anger and more chanting.

“Guards. A million credits to any who brings me the antichrist and his brother.” Asmodeus turned to his shadows and said, “Take them, my pets. Wear their bodies.”

I was a lot more worried about those pets than the guards.

The guards on the catwalks began firing rounds into the crowd, blue energy bolts that dropped prisoners so that they could get to Dread and me. Other guards rappelled down cables, batons sparking with magical energy.  The prisoners’ anger had been refocused on the guards. They were attacking them and other prisoners.

I wanted a diversion. I had one in the form of a good old-fashioned riot.

I grabbed my walkie-talkie, ducking as a metal food tray sailed over my head. “Tim!” I shouted over the chaos.

Static crackled, but then his voice came through, strained but clear. “What’s going on down there?”

“Prison riot. The Eden prisoners aren’t here.”

“They’re in a separate part of the prison,” Tim said. “A restricted area. Fortunately for you, I’ve managed to hack that system. I can get you in.”

“Good work,” I said, diving behind an overturned table to avoid bullets being fired in my direction from several guards.

“Tunnel 2,” Tim said. “Northeast corner of the commons.”

His voice cut off as someone barreled into me, sending the walkie-talkie skittering across the floor. I rolled, coming face to face with a prisoner whose eyes were milky white.

“My wife died of radiation poisoning,” he hissed, hands closing around my throat.

One of Asmodeus’s shadows dropped from above and entered the prisoner. His milky white eyes became black. His hands dropped, and this whole body relaxed.

“Antichrist,” he said, his voice a whisper. One of those whispers you heard in the night after waking up from a nightmare.

I had no protection against whatever the shadow was.

“I look forward to having you—”

He didn’t finish. He fell, and Eliza was standing where he stood.

“How?” I asked.

“Where I come from, these creatures occasionally preyed on us until my grandmother found just the right spell to send them back into the darkness they came from, where that fat demon found them. I have already sent the other pet there.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“What now?” she asked.

“Tunnel 2,” I said, pointing toward what I hoped was the northeast corner. “We need to get over there.”

My words died as a shadow fell over us. I looked up—and up—at what might have once been a man or a reasonable facsimile but was now something else entirely. He stood nearly nine feet tall, his jumpsuit torn to accommodate four massive arms, each ending in a hand that gripped a crude knife made from what looked like sharpened bone. His face was split vertically, like someone had taken two different men and pressed them together. One half was pale and freckled, the other dark and scarred.

“Little prince,” the giant rumbled, his mismatched mouth forming a smile. “I’ve waited so long to meet you.”

He swung all four arms at once, blades whistling through the air. I dropped to the ground, rolling between his tree-trunk legs. Coming up behind him, I kicked him with all my strength.

It was like kicking a concrete wall.

The giant turned with surprising speed, one of his lower arms lashing out and catching me across the chest. The blow sent me flying into a group of prisoners who were trying to avoid the fight. We went down in a tangle of limbs.

“Find the tunnel!” I shouted to Dread.

Dread appeared beside the giant, his disguise abandoned in favor of his true demonic form. He was impressive—horns curling from his temples, skin red as fresh blood. Even so, he was dwarfed by the mutated giant.

“Pick on someone your own... well, somewhat closer to your size,” Dread said, dropping into a fighting stance.

The giant roared and swung all four knives at Dread, who dodged with preternatural speed. It was a one-sided dance off after that. The giant attacking and Dread staying just out of reach of those bone blades, occasionally landing blows that seemed to do little more than annoy the behemoth.

I scrambled back to my feet, searching for Eliza. She had managed to acquire a guard’s pistol and was using it to shoot prison guards. Our other allies from the bus were scattered, fighting their own battles throughout the commons.

“Eliza!” I called. “We need to move!”

She glanced my way, nodded, then turned and fired three precise shots at the giant who was still battling Dread. The bullets struck the creature’s torso, creating small puffs of dust where they hit—like shooting a statue.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the giant staggered, looking down in confusion at three small holes that had expanded across his chest. Magic bullets. This Eliza was full of surprises. He opened his mouth, as if to speak, but blood seeped out, and he crashed to the floor. The ground shook as his soul screamed past me.

The three of us began pushing through the chaos, staying low, using the confusion to our advantage. Guards were too busy trying to regain control of the prison to focus specifically on us. Prisoners were too busy either fighting each other or trying to avoid getting stunned by the guards. We made it to Tunnel 2.

We were near the tunnel when a cold, wet sensation washed over me—like stepping under a waterfall of ice water. I gasped, my muscles seizing momentarily. Looking up, I saw Asmodeus had extended one flabby arm, his hand glowing with sickly green energy. I managed to block most of it with a protection spell.

“There you are, little librarian.” His voice boomed in my head, though his physical mouth hadn’t moved. “I’ve been wanting to have a talk with you for some time.”

His magical grip tightened, invisible pressure squeezing my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I was about to pass out, my legs buckling, when Dread slashed through the magical connection with a blade. The pressure vanished, and I collapsed to my knees, gasping.

“No time for a nap, brother,” Dread said, hauling me to my feet. “Our mutual friend looks angry.”

Asmodeus began chanting something, complex syllables that made the floor shake. Vultures appeared all around him and began diving at us. There were hundreds of them, but they were having trouble finding us in all the prisoners and confusion.

I was a little irritated that Asmodeus had turned turkey vultures into attack birds. Generally, they were pacifists who respectfully waited to ring the dinner bell until the food was dead. He was making them act unnaturally. It wasn’t right.

Eliza grabbed my arm, slinging it over her shoulder, and together, we sprinted the remaining distance to Tunnel 2. Guards tried to intercept us, but I created illusions of attackers. The illusion worked to distract some; others Dread had to punch and push out of the way.

We reached the tunnel entrance just as a murder of crows, their cries thunderous, caught up to us.

“Do those crows have teeth?” I asked, pausing to try to get a good look. “Little sharp teeth?”

“Keep running!” Eliza screamed.

“Birds don’t have teeth,” I said.

“Would you just keep running?”

The three of us dove into the tunnel. The birds crashed into the entrance, which had closed behind us. I had never seen birds attack like that (except in the Hitchcock movie), and I never wanted to again. As we ran down the tunnel, the sounds of chaos from the commons became muffled, replaced by our ragged breathing and the drip of water.

The tunnel stretched before us, carved from the natural limestone of the caverns, but reinforced with concrete and metal. Harsh LED lights were spaced at regular intervals, creating pools of light separated by shadows. The air was noticeably colder here and carried a scent I couldn’t quite place—something clinical, like a hospital, but with undertones of magic.

“Tim said there were security measures,” I said, straightening up. “Biometrics, magical barriers.”

“I don’t see anything yet,” Eliza said, peering down the tunnel.

“That worries me,” Dread replied.

We tried moving fast but cautiously down the tunnel, alert for traps or guards.

“So,” Eliza said as we walked, “you’re the antichrist?”

“More like the anti-antichrist,” I said.

“You better not let Father hear you say that,” Dread said.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

At the end of the hallway was the entrance to the restricted area. It had doors reinforced by magic. There was a guard sitting at a desk on the other side. A couple of the prisoners followed us into the hall. They knew Eliza. They called her colonel.

“Can you get us in, Kate?” Eliza said to one of the women.

She moved to the front of us and stood by me. I didn’t have a clear understanding of what she was doing, but I thought she was untangling magic that was woven around the doors. I could see the guard on his radio talking in an excited voice and occasionally looking over at us. Dread was giving the guard his demon from hell look, and I had to admit it even made me a little uneasy. The guard looked like he was either going to throw up or maybe things would go an even worse way.

Kate broke through the system, and the doors swung open. The second they did, Dread shot some bit of magic that knocked the guard out cold. It was probably an act of mercy.

Inside, the scene was nothing like the chaos of the main prison. There was no common area, no social spaces, just a cold, sterile environment that reminded me of a psych ward I’d once visited.

The walls were smooth, polished stone. The floor was poured concrete. The ceiling of the cave was about twenty feet up. Cells lined both sides of a long central corridor that branched into three separate wings. Unlike the enchanted bars in the main prison, these cells had walls with doors of what looked like reinforced glass, or possibly some kind of magical, transparent barrier. Each door had a small panel beside it with a handprint scanner and keypad.

I peered through the nearest door. Inside was a stark white room with a simple cot bolted to the floor, a stainless-steel toilet, and nothing else. No personal items, no books, not even a blanket. The occupant—a thin man with salt-and-pepper hair—sat perfectly still on the edge of the cot, staring at nothing. He didn’t react when I tapped on the glass.

“These aren’t prison cells,” Dread muttered, looking through another door. “They’re specimen containers.”

He was right. This wasn’t a place for holding criminals; it was a laboratory. Each cell contained a single person, and monitoring equipment was embedded in the ceiling of every room. Some of the prisoners appeared to be sleeping or unconscious. Others paced or sat as the first man did, expressions vacant. All wore identical white jumpsuits with numbers stenciled across the chest.

“There can’t be more than a few hundred cells here,” I said, looking down the length of the corridor. “Eden had over eighteen hundred people before Armageddon. I don’t know how many survived, but it has to be more than this.”

“Maybe they’re spread out,” Eliza suggested, checking another cell. “Different facilities.”

A door at the far end of the corridor opened, and six guards stepped through in formation. They wore heavier armor than the guards in the main prison—black with glowing blue lines tracing circuits across the surface. Their helmets completely covered their faces, with only a red sensor band where eyes would be.

Behind them came a seventh figure in a white lab coat. Unlike the guards, his face was visible; it was gaunt, with deep-set eyes and caterpillar eyebrows. His hair was white as snow. Magician, I thought.

“Intruder alert confirmed,” one of the guards announced in a voice that sounded human but wasn’t. An ordinary wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. “Terminate the intruders, Doctor?”

“Kill all but the two sons of Lucifer,” said the man in the lab coat. He smiled. It was a smile from the dark side of the moon. That was what Master Bubba Lee had once called a smile like that. Unknowing because a normal human couldn’t understand a true psychopath and shouldn’t try. It was a darkness you might not find your way back from.

“You’re the mad scientist,” I said.

“I am not a mad scientist,” he said.

“Oh, you’re a mad scientist. I’ve seen a few. It’s in the eyes.”

“I am a genius,” the doctor said.

Dread said, “I see what you’re saying. You’re right. I hadn’t noticed. Mad scientist.”

“I didn’t cause Armageddon,” the doctor taunted.

“You’ve been dreaming of Armageddon all your life,” I said.

He couldn’t help smiling at that. Even the darkest of the dark liked to be understood.

“I’m a scientist, it’s true. But I am improving the human race. I am creating a new and improved human. I would say you’ll see, but I’m afraid your contribution will be a quick death after I take what I need from you.”

“I think I understand. You’re using what you learned from The Harvester. You’re going to harvest souls.”

“Very good. Yes. I am on the brink of discovering The Harvester’s techniques. He fooled you. He fooled you all. His talk of soul and life force. It was smoke and mirrors. It is the brain that can be taken. It is the brain that holds the life force. There is no soul.”

“Maybe the soul’s in the brain,” I said.

“I am creating a detailed collection of the various supernatural powers. The witch’s power to do spells. Your power of illusion. The vampire’s strength and longevity. Your brother, if I recall, has a very special power—teleportation. I will take that one for myself. These powers can be removed when the brain is removed. I am close to a breakthrough in making it happen. Even the great powers of a magician, an angel even, will eventually be available to us. I will create a master race, a race of superhumans that will defeat angels and demons and, eventually, the whole universe.”

Talk about delusions of grandeur. I was right in the first place—mad scientist.

He flicked his fingers, and a wall of purple energy shot toward Dread and me. Dread shoved me aside and took the brunt of the blast, which knocked him back several feet but didn’t kill him because he had that gift humans had always envied, immortality. I’d seen immortals in the battle of Armageddon seem to die, but they were just knocked out of our reality and had to make their way back. Some of them were back the next day. Sometimes it took longer. But they didn’t die. Of course, I couldn’t say they would never die. Forever was a long time. It was the longest time. Could a mayfly that lives only an hour or two imagine our lives?

The guards advanced, raising weapons that looked like a cross between rifles and cattle prods.

“Fire pattern alpha,” the leader ordered.

They fired in unison. Instead of bullets, the weapons launched glowing blue energy that moved like bullets too fast to see. I ducked behind a protruding section of wall as energy exploded against it, destroying most of it.

Dread recovered from the magical blast and went on the offensive. He would appear and disappear by the guards, delivering blows that dented their armor and sent them staggering. They were resilient, though, regaining their balance quickly and striking back with batons that crackled with electricity.

I focused on the mad scientist. I crafted an illusion. A dozen of me rushing at him along with the real me. It wasn’t much of a diversion, but it confused him.

He waved his hand dismissively, and several of my illusions disappeared.

Eliza was fighting two guards who’d stopped her from opening cell doors. She moved with military precision, using their size and armor against them, finding the weak points. I could hear some of the prisoners shouting for help. I listened for familiar voices. Olive, Rip, Lucy, the ghostbusters or teenagers. Especially Olive’s voice. I desperately wanted to hear it, to know she was still alive and here and not in some other prison.

I reached the magician as he spun another attack spell, but I was faster. I tackled him to the ground with a good, old-fashioned physical and non-magical collision. Then I pinned his arms to his sides to prevent him from casting. I headbutted him, my forehead breaking his nose. He screamed with pain. I felt a little bad about how good it felt to break his nose.

He was outraged. He was a magician. They didn’t go in for good, old-fashioned physical violence. They were too civilized for that. Not too civilized to experiment with kidnapped people. Not too civilized to steal someone’s brain to create a super supernatural human. Not too civilized for violently taking lives because they wanted to.

“Call them off,” I said, pressing my forearm against his throat.

“No,” he said.

I pressed harder. “I’m going to crush your windpipe. You aren’t immortal yet, Doctor.”

He made a choking sound, then whispered words from a language I didn’t understand. Immediately, the guards froze in position.

They lowered their weapons and stood motionless. It was like a switch had been flipped. Probably because a switch had been flipped. Whatever they were, they were under the mad scientist’s control.

Dread, who had been in the process of ripping a guard’s helmet off, stopped to look at me. “We need to get out of here. Someone will have called for help by now.”

I hauled the magician to his feet, keeping a firm grip on his arm. “Where are the controls for these cells? How do we get them open?”

The magician smiled thinly. “The central control station is at the junction of the three wings. But you’ll need my biometric signature to access it.”

“Then that’s where we’re going,” I said, shoving him forward. “My brother can show you some torture techniques if you’re not cooperative.”

Dread put his arm around the doctor. He said, in a chummy way, “I know some classics that have really stood the test of time.”

We marched the magician to the control station—a raised circular platform surrounded by screens and control panels. The screens showed feeds from inside each cell, monitoring vital signs and other data I couldn’t interpret.

“Open the cells,” I demanded.

“You don’t understand what you’re doing,” he said.

“I’m okay with that. Open the cells, or I let Dread show you his classics.”  

Dread smiled warmly.

“I can make our world a better place, a perfect one. I am the new creator. We will be like gods.”

“How many of the Eden citizens are here?” I asked.

“Three hundred and seventeen as of today.”

“And the rest? Where are the rest?”

“Some were transferred to other facilities. Some were placed in the general population here, though most of those didn’t survive long. The inmates aren’t particularly welcoming to those they perceive as favored by the old world. Also, of course, we couldn’t allow them to have access to their special abilities.”

“How many facilities? Where are they?”

The magician shrugged. “That information is above my clearance level. The King’s Council compartmentalizes information.”

“Open the cells.”

The doctor didn’t move.

I nodded to Dread, and he slapped the doctor six times. The doctor’s head went from side to side. I was afraid it was going to fly off his body.

When Dread stopped, the doctor opened the cells.

A soft chime sounded, and all the cell doors in view slid open simultaneously. For a long moment, nothing happened. Then, slowly, tentatively, people began to emerge from their cells.

“It’s all right,” I called out. “We’re here to help you. We’re going to get you out.”

“You can’t do this,” the doctor said.

“I think we can,” I said.

Most came out. Others remained in their doorways, uncertain. A few retreated back into their cells. I noticed that every Eden citizen wore identical silver bracelets—sleek bands about an inch wide with pulsing blue circuitry visible beneath a translucent outer layer. Small needle-like protrusions on the inside pressed against their skin, and I could see where they had left angry red marks on some wrists. Dread and I took the doctor back to the control panel. Dread convinced the doctor to enter the right codes. The bracelets snapped open and slid off wrists.

I moved among them, searching for familiar faces from Eden. Many were familiar, but I didn’t know them. But then I spotted a tall, angular man with a Father Time white beard.

“Rip!” I called.

He turned slowly, his eyes struggling to focus.

“Librarian?” he asked, voice hoarse from disuse. “About time you got here.”

“Are you all right?”

“No,” he said, “but I will be.”

As more people emerged from their cells, I spotted Walt supporting an elderly woman who could barely walk. His once-imposing frame had been reduced by captivity, but they had not rid his eyes of their warmth.

“Walt,” I said, moving to help him. “It’s good to see you.”

Before I could respond, a whoop of joy came from further down the corridor.

“Librarian, I thought they’d got you, dude.” Ryan bounded toward me. He gave me a hug. He’d lost weight, and his normally wild hair had been shaved, but his eyes still had that manic gleam.

“We’re besties,” he said to Dread.

“It’s good to see you,” I said.

Then Ryan greeted Walt and Rip.

“Have you seen Camila?” he asked me.

“No. But we haven’t made it to all the cells.”

I prayed to the gods—in a general way, because I’d met some of the gods, and I knew they weren’t going to do anything—that Olive was in one of those cells. Every minute I didn’t see her, glad as I was to see the others, was torture.

“I’m going to find her,” he said. He tried to sound confident, but I could see he was like me. Most of the cells had emptied.

I was pretty sure we hadn’t been able to control the situation enough that someone in all the confusion hadn’t called for help. We just had to hope that help was far enough away. We’d have time to get everyone to the hotel.

Dread, Eliza, and I moved through the facility, gathering the former citizens of Eden. Many were weak or disoriented, but those in better condition helped the others. Eliza organized them.

In the East Wing, I found Lucy in a cell. Her face was gaunt, but her eyes clear. “I knew you would come. I didn’t give up on you.”

I helped her to her feet. “We need to go. Do you know where Olive is?”

“Special containment. End of the wing. They keep her isolated because she fought back the most.”

I went to where Dread was holding the doctor-magician.

“He didn’t release all the bracelets,” I told Dread. “Special containment. You’re going to take us there now.”

“Impossible,” the magician protested, wincing. “They’re dangerous.”

I grabbed him and put him in a sleeper hold. “I wasn’t asking. Release them all. Now.”

He nodded, and as soon as he had his breath said, “If I release the bracelets for the special containment, all the areas will be opened. There are individuals here who are genuinely dangerous out there in the general population.”

“Olive is there, isn’t she? If she’s hurt, you’re dead. You’d better get us there fast or you’re dead. You understand me? Your chances of surviving this are going down every second we’re here.”

His fingers flew across the control panel, entering commands. On one of the screens, a prompt appeared: CONFIRM GLOBAL DAMPENER RELEASE—SECURITY PROTOCOL OVERIDE.

He pressed Confirm. A high-pitched noise sounded throughout the facility. I could feel the release.

The effect was immediate and visible in the noise the general population was making. I went back to the far end of the East Wing. Some of the Eden townspeople were coming out of their solitary cells. They looked thin and weak. They looked at a lot of things. Sad, mad, afraid.

“We’re going home,” I told them.

I heard them passing the news.

Picking up one of the fallen bracelets, I examined it. The inner needles were stained with dried blood. I felt a surge of anger, thinking about what these people had gone through. Thinking about what Olive had gone through.  

Dread was behind me, dragging the doctor along. I walked back, and I snapped the bracelet around the magician’s wrist. It locked with a satisfying click; the circuitry flaring bright blue before settling into a steady pulse.

The doctor cried out, his knees buckling as the device activated. His face contorted. I could feel the fear coming over him. He had never been helpless.

“How does it feel?” I asked coldly.

“You don’t understand,” he gasped, clawing uselessly at the bracelet. “I am the savior of the world. Do you think the aliens won’t come back?”

“Oh, I understand,” I said. “I’m not sure everyone else in this prison will, but I do.”

I didn’t see Olive until the end of the line out of the special containment area. She was helping an elderly woman. Unlike the others, there was no confusion in her eyes, only a burning intensity that hadn’t diminished in captivity.

I ran over to her, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard I thought it might break through. The relief crashed over me, almost knocking me off my feet.

“Olive” I shouted.

She looked up. Everything else was a background in that second. The chaos around us—the escaping prisoners, the alarms, Dread shouting orders.

My arms wrapped around her so tightly I was afraid I might hurt her, but I couldn’t let go. She felt thinner, harder, but unmistakably Olive. Her scent, beneath the sterile prison smell, was exactly as I remembered. I buried my face in her neck and felt her pulse against my cheek, the most beautiful rhythm I’d ever known.

“You came,” she whispered. “I knew you would. Somehow. I knew.”

I pulled back just enough to look at her face, to memorize it all over again. Her eyes were the same deep green, though now with faint crow’s feet. We were in our thirties now. I traced her cheekbone with my thumb.

“I’m sorry it took so long,” I said.

She gave a laugh that was half sob, pressing her forehead against mine. “It did take you a freaking long time.”

I kissed her. Her lips were so familiar. They were exactly as I remembered. Familiar but at the same time different. Like I remembered.

“I love you,” I said.

“I love you,” she said.

She was crying. I wiped her tears away with my thumbs, even as my own vision blurred.

“We’re going home,” I promised.

I was afraid to move, afraid to let her go, and I think she was the same. Dread shouted my name. The world crashed back in—the urgency, the danger, the need to move quickly. But even as I pulled away, I kept hold of Olive’s hand, our fingers intertwining.

At that moment, I thought nothing would ever come between us. I was sure of it.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Now that I had Olive and the others, all we had to do was get the weak and traumatized Eden citizens through a prison riot and back to the surface and out of the prison and to the hotel. Then escape from whatever awaited us in the desert. Then be able to fly through whatever had kept everyone else from reaching Eden. Piece of cake.

“We need to move quickly,” I told Dread, Olive, Rip, Walt, and Eliza. “The main prison is in chaos, but that’s temporary. We need to be gone before they get reinforcements and take control.”

“What’s the plan?” Walt asked, his voice raspy.

“Get to the surface, find transportation, and get back to the hotel,” I said.

“That’s not a plan,” Olive noted. “That’s a wish list.”

“I’m improvising,” I admitted. “But Tim’s disabled most of the security systems, and the chaos in the main prison should provide cover. “

Dread dragged the doctor forward. He glared at us, still struggling with the bracelet on his wrist.

“You are all going to die,” he said. “Asmodeus doesn’t let people escape.”

“Asmodeus is busy with a riot,” Dread replied.

I called Tim with the walkie-talkie and asked him for a different way up than the way we came. He said there was a service elevator at the end of the north wing.

“It leads directly to where they keep the vehicles. A few buses and some trucks. Less chance of encountering resistance.”

“There you are,” I said to Olive. “A plan.”

“Now we have a slightly more specific wish list,” she corrected.

Eliza had organized the Eden citizens into groups, with the stronger ones helping those who could barely walk. Lucy was moving among them, offering quiet words of encouragement. Ryan had formed a rear guard with some of the more able-bodied refugees.

Rip approached me, his white beard matted and dirty, but his eyes were clear. “Can we get back to Eden? I know the king and the high council have tried. I’m not sure we’ll be able to find a way back. After all, we all ended up there by wandering through the forest.”

“How did we get into the forest?” I said.

“A mystery.”

“Exactly. We got there from all over the world, though. As if we were meant to get there.”

He stroked his beard and nodded.

“Anyway,” I said, “right now, we need to focus on getting out of here to the hotel.”

With the doctor leading the way—motivated by Dread’s occasional not-so-gentle nudges—we moved through the high-security area toward the north wing. The corridors were eerily quiet compared to the chaos we could hear echoing from the main prison.

We reached a set of double doors marked Authorized Personnel Only. The doctor pressed his hand to a scanner, and the doors slid open to reveal a large freight elevator.

“Let’s move the weakest first,” I said.

We loaded the first group—about fifty of the weakest Eden citizens, along with Lucy and several others, to help them. I sent Eliza with them, trusting her combat skills if they encountered trouble above.

“We’ll be right behind you,” I promised as the doors closed.

The wait for the elevator’s return felt interminable. Somewhere in the distance, we could hear alarms blaring and the sounds of the riot still raging through the main prison. Every few minutes, the building would shake slightly—evidence of magical combat.

“Asmodeus is getting creative,” Dread commented after a particularly violent tremor.

The elevator finally returned, and we loaded the second group, including Olive, Walt, and Rip. I sent Dread with them.

As the doors closed on them, the doctor turned to me. “You’re not going to make it out of here. You know that, right?”

“You keep saying that, but here we are, almost gone.”

“Asmodeus is toying with you. He could have sealed all exits the moment he recognized you. He’s letting you get close to escape because it’s more amusing when hope dies at the last moment. I know because I would do the same.”

I was about to respond when the building shook again, more violently this time. Dust and small chips of rock rained down from the ceiling.

“That wasn’t Asmodeus,” the doctor said. “That’s coming from outside.”

The remaining Eden citizens looked around nervously. Ryan stepped closer to me. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I don’t think we should wait to find out.”

The elevator was taking too long to return. I reached for the walkie-talkie to contact Tim, but before I could, a voice crackled from an intercom.

“Military forces have surrounded the facility. This rioting must stop now. You have three minutes to comply, or you will be eliminated. Soldiers are landing on the roof as I speak. Do as I say.”

The elevator finally arrived. The doors slid open. It was not empty; Tim came out wild-eyed and breathless.

“We have to go,” he shouted. “Like, right now. There are a lot of soldiers.”

“How many?” I asked as we started loading the final group of Eden citizens.

“I managed to hack into their communication system,” Tim said. “A strike force, whatever that means. Two helicopters landed, but I saw trucks speeding this way. A whole caravan of army trucks. We have maybe five minutes.”

“You have radio contact with the others?”

“They’re almost loaded. One bus is left for us.”

The elevator ascended rapidly. When the doors opened, we emerged into what looked like a massive garage carved from the cavern wall. Five large yellow school buses were parked in a row, their doors open, engines already running. I could see Eliza still directing people onto a sixth bus while Dread stood watch at the large vehicle bay doors.

Tim and I hurried the last group toward the sixth and last bus. We were almost there when a deafening explosion rocked the cavern. The vehicle bay doors buckled inward, and a cloud of dust and debris billowed through.

Through the settling dust, using my third eye, I could make out armored soldiers moving into the prison from the blown front gate.

I hurried the last group into the bus.

Eden citizens scrambled for safety. The special forces opened fire, energy weapons sending blue streaks through the air that left scorch marks wherever they hit. Dread moved to intercept them, his body shifting into combat form—larger, more demonic, his skin hardening into scales.

I turned to the doctor, who was trying to slip away in the confusion.

“Dread,” I shouted. “Transport the doc and me down to the prison intercom.”

He came over and put his hand on my shoulder and the doctor’s, and we were transferred down to the prison office. There was a guard sitting at a desk with black earphones. He tried to get up, but I knocked him out before he could get clear of his chair. I spoke into the intercom.

“Soldiers are here and many more are on the way. You have to escape this place now.”

“Let’s go,” I said to Dread.

“You can’t leave me here,” the doctor said. “They’ll kill me.”

I shrugged. “You’re a genius. You’ll find a way out.”

Dread transported us back into the garage. We got in one of the Ford F-650s, a huge truck. We drove to the front of the line of buses, and we pulled out just as the first prisoners rushed the special forces.

I used the two-way radio to instruct Tim to tell everyone to use whatever magic they had or could muster to confuse the soldiers and help the prisoners as we passed them. The special forces mowed down the prisoners who were trying to escape. The buses pulled out of the garage. Waves of magic rushed out from them. It knocked some of the soldiers off their feet. It knocked others into walls. It gave the prisoners cover, and some were able to reach the guards. There was fierce fighting.

I hit the accelerator, and Dread sent bolts of blue into a crowd of soldiers, knocking them aside. The buses followed us.

We came out into blinding daylight; after the dimness of the prison, the New Mexico sun was painful. I saw military helicopters coming down from the north, and beneath them was that caravan of military trucks Tim had told me about.

I swerved to avoid a military truck and bumped one of the soldiers and sent him flying.

“Sorry,” I yelled.

“Sorry?” Dread said.

“Reflex,” I said.

Through the back mirror, I caught a glimpse of something massive emerging from the prison entrance behind us—a very large figure floating above the ground, surrounded by sickly green energy.

The demon warden raised his arms, and the ground beneath one of the buses began to crack and buckle. The ground was opening. I thought at least half of the buses would be swallowed by the earth.

“We need a diversion,” I said. I created an illusion of a helicopter falling out of the sky toward Asmodeus. At the same time, Dread sent a wave of fire that shot directly at the portly demon. It engulfed Asmodeus. The cracking ground stopped immediately. It was a bumpy ride for the buses, but we were able to get through.

The hotel was just in front of us, floating a few feet off the ground. We skidded to a stop just beyond the entrance. Fluffy was waiting outside. He greeted me first and then Dread. Seconds later, buses were emptying in front. He smelled Olive and showered her, literally, with licks.

The hotel manager came out and told me she couldn’t get a destination clearance for Eden.

“You’ll just have to trust we get there,” I told her.

“We’ll crash into space if we can’t pass out of this realm into that one.”

“Do it!” I shouted as the caravan rose over the hill and a missile flew off one of the trucks.

Dread got the last of the Edenites into the hotel. Fluffy and Olive and I got in the Cadillac Deville. We disappeared at the same time the hotel did.

Chapter Forty

Wherever the missile went, hopefully into one of those stark desert hills, it did not hit its target. The hotel rematerialized in the square of Eden where it always materialized. Other buildings made room for it. I landed the Cadillac Deville along the street instead of in the Collection of Curiosities in the library.

The Edenites, and a few others who had been in the prison and on the bus we came in on, moved out of the hotel and into the square. Ryan told me he hadn’t found Camila.

“Maybe taken to another prison?” he asked.

“Maybe,” I said.

“We’re going to find her, though, right?”

“Right,” I said.

Ryan said he was going over to The Bar and get it open for business. He could use a drink, and he was pretty sure many of the others could, too.

Dread said he was taking off back to West Texas. Lucifer would want to know what we’d done.

“We’ll meet up at the palace,” he said to me. “We have things to discuss.”

“I’ll find you,” I said.

I wasn’t sure I could go back to the palace just yet. Lucifer was going to be pretty angry with me. I didn’t want him making a snap decision I would regret, like throwing me into the new Hell On Earth’s nearly bottomless pit.

After Dread left, Olive and I went over to the park. We held hands. We sat down on the bench. She was quiet for a long moment, her gaze fixed on the familiar trees and grass of Eden. I knew she was taking it all in.

“It was bad,” she said, “when the experiments started, it got bad. Some people just couldn’t take it. They gave up.”

I squeezed her hand gently. She squeezed back, hard.

“Did he take anything from you?” I asked.

She was close to tears. I thought she might be close to them for some time.

“He was saving me and some of the others for when he could have a higher chance of success. The weaker your talents, the harsher his experiments.”

“Like the alien harvester?”

“Not exactly. The Harvester wanted our spark. The energy the universe stores in our bodies. But the doctor was after the parts of our brain that made us supernaturals. He said everything came from the brain. He wanted to create a creature that would have the best of the strongest supernaturals. Superhumans.”

“His master race.”

“He was convinced that all of us who had found Eden were here for a reason. The creator had gathered us for Doctor VanNess.”

I felt sick. “He killed people.”

Olive nodded, close to tears again. “Dozens. Thomas was the first. His heart gave out during an endurance trial. Then Conrad. The Foster twins—both in the same week. He pushed them too far, trying to amplify their twin connection. Then old Mr. Baldwin. Like I said. A lot gave up.”

I put my arm around her shoulders as she shook with silent tears.

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

“He documented everything,” she continued after a moment. “Clinical notes, videos, recordings, tissue samples. Like those Nazi scientists in the camps, building a body of research on human suffering. He even referenced their work sometimes, said they had valuable methodologies despite their ethical limitations. He couldn’t see he was exactly like them.”

“I’m so sorry, Olive.”

“The worst part was watching him select new subjects when someone died. He’d walk through the cells, examining us like livestock at auction. No remorse, no hesitation. Just calculating which of us might be of use to him.”

She turned to face me, eyes now dry and hard as flint. “When the bracelets came off today, I wanted to kill him. I wanted to do it more than I’ve ever wanted anything.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I’m not him,” she said simply. “Anyway, that death is too easy for him. I want him to answer for what he did, to stand trial in front of a court. I want the world to know what the king and the King’s Council authorized in the name of research.”

We sat in silence for a while, watching as Eden citizens reunited with each other all over the square, their voices carrying on the breeze—a mix of laughter, tears, joy, and sorrow.

“I should have held on to him,” I said. “But who will judge him? Not the king and his council.”

“Not them.”

“The people he experimented on should judge him.”

“Yes,” she said. “If he survives the riot.”

“Cockroaches are hard to kill.”

“The council will have prices on all of our heads.”

“They can’t get here to Eden,” I said. “At least they haven’t been able to so far. Maybe we’re safe.”

“No one is safe,” she said.

Chapter Forty-One

The Bar was not the bar I’d seen a couple of days ago. It had come back to life. The dusty, dark bar that had looked abandoned was alive with a crowd of people and revived to its former self. The dust cleared from the tables and chairs and the bottles of alcohol. It was as if Eden came back to life with the return of its people.

Olive and I (I told Fluffy he had to wait out by the door, and he lay down after complaining about being hungry) went into the bar and walked over to the table where Rip was sitting with Mrs. Horn and Walt and Ryan.

“It’s a miracle,” old Mrs. Horn said. “This is divine intervention. The creator has returned and brought us home.”

Old Mrs. Horn was drinking straight whiskey. She was a good Christian with a drinking problem.

“It could be,” Walt said, “that there is something to what Mrs. Horn says.”

“Divine intervention?” I asked.

“Not exactly. Something here, though. How did we all get here in the first place? We were brought here. And now we’re back. No one else seems to get to our little town.”

“Magic,” Olive said. “An old magic here. That much I know.”

We pulled some tables over so we could all sit together.

“I’m just glad to be back,” Rip said and raised his glass. “To the librarian, who brought us home.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Ryan said, raising his glass. He seemed to have already, in record time, gotten himself somewhat drunk. “When they first dragged us out of Eden, I didn’t think we’d ever see this place again. The good doctor told us it had been destroyed.”

“He told us you were dead,” Walt added, looking at me. “The king had to have you killed.”

They all wanted to know what had happened to me, and I felt like I had to tell them. I told them about waking up in Eden alone and going into the haunted forest and discovering it wasn’t our haunted forest and that I wasn’t even in our world. I told them about the wizards of the black castle, the bad and good witch, the fairies.

“I lost five years,” I said.

“We all have,” Rip said.

“One thing Doctor VanNess said was true,” Olive said. “Eden is special. People didn’t just accidentally get here. I believe that now.”

“You think Eden brought us?” I asked.

“Or the creator.”

“Or the universe,” I said.

“I believe it’s a pocket dimension of some kind,” Walt said. “A door is opened for us into the forest. If we make it through the forest, we make it here.”

A woman whose name I didn’t know brought a tray of drinks. “Sorry to interrupt your gloom fest, but I figured the reunion calls for some celebration.” She set down the tray of drinks and told us to drink up.

Olive passed out the drinks.

“How many of us are still missing?” I asked.

Walt’s face darkened. “Roughly fifteen hundred. Some of those might have escaped. Some are dead.”

“The children,” Mrs. Horn said, clutching her whiskey. “Dear God, the children.”

“They’re alive,” Rip said firmly. “They’re valuable. The council will have kept them alive. They’re probably in a special prison for young people.”

Ryan downed his drink and reached for another cocktail. “So we find them along with Camila.”

“We’ll need information,” I said. “We’ll need the location of other prisons.”

“We are God’s chosen people,” Mrs. Horn said. “We are bound to be persecuted. We have a purpose.”

“What purpose?” Walt asked.

Mrs. Horn finished her whiskey with a grimace. “We can’t know. We have to trust in his plan.”

“The king will come for us,” Rip said. “He has to. We’re a threat.”

“How did they get here?” I asked.

No one knew. Then I remembered the hotel and its manager. I said I’d be right back and ran out of the bar, planning to get some answers from the hotel manager, but she and the hotel were gone.

Olive followed me out.

“Well crap,” Ryan said. “It’s gone.”

“Crap indeed,” Walt said.

“There’s only one way the council and its agent got here,” Rip said. “Someone let them in.”

We went back into the bar and tried to celebrate. We didn’t do a great job of it, but we tried.

Chapter Forty-Two

After a while, we said goodnight.

Olive and Fluffy and I went back to the library and downstairs because Olive wanted to be in the safest place possible. We made love in my bed while Fluffy slept. Afterward, we lay awake. Neither of us could get to sleep.

“I have to go back to the flatlands,” I said, after a while. “I have to find the others. Give them the chance to come back.”

“I can’t leave Eden,” Olive said.

“You don’t have to.”

“I can’t,” she said. “You shouldn’t either. They’re looking for you down there. There will be the high council’s guards and assassins and hundreds of bounty hunters and even regular people. Some who think you’re responsible, but some who are just desperate to feed their families. The world has lost many of its advantages.”

“This is where you tell me we need a plan,” I said.

“Not tonight,” she said.

We held hands.

I kissed her. She kissed me. Fluffy’s paws fluttered over on his bed as he dreamed. They sounded like he was running in place.

“We’re safe, right?” she asked.

“Of course we are,” I said.

“Of course we are,” she echoed.

We held each other tighter. No one was fooling anyone. We knew we were lying.

Tomorrow we’d talk.

Tomorrow we’d face things we needed to face.

“We do need a plan,” she said.

“Tomorrow,” I said.

“Tomorrow,” she agreed.

THE END

About the author: I did hitch-hike across this country many times in my youth, and worked in a library for nearly a decade. I was adopted, and I do live in a city whose motto is “keep it weird”, which are words to live by. I’m not saying I’m strangely qualified to write this story but I am saying I’m strangely qualified to write this story.

Thank you for reading. I am grateful to find readers who seem to have the same kind of twisted (I mean unusual) sense of humor as I do.

About this series: Thanks so much for reading The Librarian After The Apocalypse. If you read the twelve novels of the first series, thanks for venturing into this part 2 of that series. If you’re new to my work and enjoyed it, I hope you’ll take a look at the first series.

I started these novels with no clear idea of where they would lead me or even if there would be more than one. Once I got going I couldn’t stop. More stories set in this world with the librarian and friends and enemies keep working their way into that part of me that loves to write stories. I intend to write several more novels. No idea how many at this point, but as long as the stories keep coming, I’ll keep writing them.

Thanks again for reading.

If you enjoyed The Librarian After The Apocalypse please write a review or leave a rating. They really do help me find an audience for my strange stories. Even a single sentence is great. Thanks so much!

My Book?

Also book 2 in this series is up for preorder if you’re interested. It’s titled The Librarian and the Monsters of the Apocalypse. Spoiler Alert: Some of those monsters are human.

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Finally, if you’re so inclined, you can sign up for my email list on my website. I’ll send you a free short collection of stories in the style and tone of the novel you just read. I send out an email once a month with news about my work, free or discounted deals, and sometimes free excerpts from a new novel or a completed short story.

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