Aloha from Hell (Sandman Slim 3)

“It can’t. I can. That’s why it was easy to duck out when Baphomet turned the generals against me.”

Mason puts the Singularity in his pocket.

“The trick is to contain the explosion. Allowing the blast to happen, but preventing it from coalescing back into a new universe.”

“How can you do that?”

He walks behind Alice.

“By setting the Singularity off within a divine object. Say a soul fresh from Heaven.”

He puts his hands on Alice’s shoulders.

“Her divine spark will increase the strength of the new Big Bang so that the new universe will blow itself apart before any of it can come together.”

“I bet I can yank out your spine before you do anything with Alice and that goose egg.”

“I don’t need long. I was hoping for just a few more minutes before you got here.”

“Where’s Aelita? Did she desert you in your hour of need?”

He rolls his eyes.

“The silly bitch went back to Heaven. You know her obsession with killing God? She got Neshamah but she wants the brother still in Heaven. Ruach.”

“She knew all about the Singularity,” says Alice. “She said Ruach told her.”

“Why would he give her something that could wipe out everything, including him?”

Mason wipes a few spots of hydraulic fluid from his cheek.

“Apparently, he thinks he’s figured out a way to survive the blast. It’s not possible, but he believes it and it got me what I wanted.”

“So, you’ve got Alice, the Singularity, and the big knife. But you haven’t done anything with any of it yet. What do you think happens now?”

“I’m going to set off my bomb and you’re going to try and stop me, which means that one of us is going to kill the other one. Or we kill each other.”

“I vote for the first one.”

“Me, too.”

Mason puts his hands together like he’s praying. Something in the ceiling explodes, covering me with white powder. Does he want us to make biscuits together or fill me full of anthrax? The room turns to water and I fall through.

I wake up in our bed in the old apartment. I hear Alice showering in the bathroom. My head is a little fuzzy. I drank too much again last night. I’ll cool it tonight. We’ll stay in and watch the Argento marathon and order pizza.

Alice comes out of the bathroom toweling herself off. She’s naked. She comes over to the bed and hands me the to

“Do my back, will you? And my hair?”

She asks like it’s a burden to run the towel and my hands over her. I bend her forward and pull her against me, carefully toweling her from the small of her back to the nape of her neck. I start rubbing the towel through her hair and she leans back into it like a puppy being scratched.

“Kasabian called,” she says. “Your little magic Circle is supposed to meet at Mason’s place at ten.”

I say, “They’re going to have a long wait. I’m not going back. I’m quitting.”

She turns around and hugs me to her naked skin.

“Really?” she asks. “I was hoping you’d say that. I don’t like those people. Mason gives me the creeps.”