air. She could hear crickets chirping, could see the plush, green grass sloping down the hill that the map library had been built on. All there was left to do now was keep running, just keep running away and get as far away from this place, or this nightmare, as possible.
“Adieu, Penelope,” a voice reverberated in her ears, that voice she’d heard from the man in the basement—the voice that was more like light. “Relish your life while you have it, because you’ve just borne witness to the home of your hereafter...”
Penelope stopped and turned. She couldn’t help it.
She looked back into the alley.
It was the man, the magnificent man named Zeihl, standing at the front steps of the Halman Map Library amid all of the evil buildings that seemed to have grown around it. Zeihl’s halo coruscated, and so did his quiet smile. Then came the sound:
Ssssssssssssssss-ONK!
It popped in the air. Penelope felt her ears pop too, like an airplane descending, and next came a flash of throbbing green light. The flash seemed to grow into a stagnant, shuddering blob a few yards from the library’s front doors. The blob grew, painting everything on the infernal street an cerie luminescent green.
What—what IS that? Penelope wondered.
The Warlock in the white cloak and hood drifted out of the library, with something like a small suitcase under his arm. And the green blob, by now, had throbbed and shivered like living neon until it had changed into a shape that resembled an open aperture, a rimmed hole in the air but a hole made of the green light. A hole, yes, or a doorway ...
The white-garbed figure drifted past Zeihl without a word or a gesture ... and then stepped into that doorway.
The doorway began to shrink.
Zeihl cast Penelope a final smile. He knelt down and kissed the ground, and as he did so, Penelope noticed the charred arrangement of bones that seemed folded up into the middle of his back.
Wings, Penelope realized.
“Run, Penelope,” the voice shined. “You will see this place again, but this is the last time you’ll see me ...”
The earth began to tremble. All the strange buildings and spiring black skyscrapers around the library began to fade, and the bizarre green doorway vanished.
Zeihl stood back up.
Now, in his hand, he held a knife with a long curved silver blade and he looked up with that beautiful smile, closed his eyes, and slit his own throat.
The blood that flowed from the wound glowed bright as magma. Penelope was helpless to do anything but look on.
The Fallen Angel had told her to relish her life, but what he hadn’t told her was that her life would end a second later—
—when Zeihl’s body exploded into a mushroom cloud of blinding white light that vaulted a hundred feet into the air, incinerating everything in a quarter-mile radius.
Including Penelope.
Chapter Five
(I)
Cassie slept fitfully, sweating through nightmares of the Mephistopolis, of Dentata-Peds and Tentaculi, of Nectoports and City Mutilation Squads. She dreamed of taking the train from Tiberius Depot into Pogrom Park where destitute amputee demons bummed change and outdoor fountains gushed blood. She dreamed of the immense J.P. Kennedy Ghettoblocks—a slum district the size of the entire state of Texas. She dreamed of the Mephisto Building—666 floors high—and the one time she’d actually seen Lucifer looking out of one of its narrow windows.
At least her nightmares had changed. In the past, she’d always been tormented by nightmares of her sister’s suicide. Now she was merely tormented by nightmares of Hell.
But she’d had one more dream, too, hadn’t she?
Angelese, she recalled, sitting up now in the ward bed. She rubbed sleep from her eyes and chuckled to herself. The girl with snow-white hair. An angel. But why would Cassie dream of something so strange? And had it really been a dream? I’m from an Order of the Seraphim, the image in the water had told her, a very special order. Those from my
“Adieu, Penelope,” a voice reverberated in her ears, that voice she’d heard from the man in the basement—the voice that was more like light. “Relish your life while you have it, because you’ve just borne witness to the home of your hereafter...”
Penelope stopped and turned. She couldn’t help it.
She looked back into the alley.
It was the man, the magnificent man named Zeihl, standing at the front steps of the Halman Map Library amid all of the evil buildings that seemed to have grown around it. Zeihl’s halo coruscated, and so did his quiet smile. Then came the sound:
Ssssssssssssssss-ONK!
It popped in the air. Penelope felt her ears pop too, like an airplane descending, and next came a flash of throbbing green light. The flash seemed to grow into a stagnant, shuddering blob a few yards from the library’s front doors. The blob grew, painting everything on the infernal street an cerie luminescent green.
What—what IS that? Penelope wondered.
The Warlock in the white cloak and hood drifted out of the library, with something like a small suitcase under his arm. And the green blob, by now, had throbbed and shivered like living neon until it had changed into a shape that resembled an open aperture, a rimmed hole in the air but a hole made of the green light. A hole, yes, or a doorway ...
The white-garbed figure drifted past Zeihl without a word or a gesture ... and then stepped into that doorway.
The doorway began to shrink.
Zeihl cast Penelope a final smile. He knelt down and kissed the ground, and as he did so, Penelope noticed the charred arrangement of bones that seemed folded up into the middle of his back.
Wings, Penelope realized.
“Run, Penelope,” the voice shined. “You will see this place again, but this is the last time you’ll see me ...”
The earth began to tremble. All the strange buildings and spiring black skyscrapers around the library began to fade, and the bizarre green doorway vanished.
Zeihl stood back up.
Now, in his hand, he held a knife with a long curved silver blade and he looked up with that beautiful smile, closed his eyes, and slit his own throat.
The blood that flowed from the wound glowed bright as magma. Penelope was helpless to do anything but look on.
The Fallen Angel had told her to relish her life, but what he hadn’t told her was that her life would end a second later—
—when Zeihl’s body exploded into a mushroom cloud of blinding white light that vaulted a hundred feet into the air, incinerating everything in a quarter-mile radius.
Including Penelope.
Chapter Five
(I)
Cassie slept fitfully, sweating through nightmares of the Mephistopolis, of Dentata-Peds and Tentaculi, of Nectoports and City Mutilation Squads. She dreamed of taking the train from Tiberius Depot into Pogrom Park where destitute amputee demons bummed change and outdoor fountains gushed blood. She dreamed of the immense J.P. Kennedy Ghettoblocks—a slum district the size of the entire state of Texas. She dreamed of the Mephisto Building—666 floors high—and the one time she’d actually seen Lucifer looking out of one of its narrow windows.
At least her nightmares had changed. In the past, she’d always been tormented by nightmares of her sister’s suicide. Now she was merely tormented by nightmares of Hell.
But she’d had one more dream, too, hadn’t she?
Angelese, she recalled, sitting up now in the ward bed. She rubbed sleep from her eyes and chuckled to herself. The girl with snow-white hair. An angel. But why would Cassie dream of something so strange? And had it really been a dream? I’m from an Order of the Seraphim, the image in the water had told her, a very special order. Those from my
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