“Me, too. I’m going to call some Sub Rosas I know and see if they can help me find a legit job. Nothing behind a desk, but not like the apocalyptic power stuff we’ve been playing with in the Circle. It’s giving me bad dreams.”
“That and the beer.”
“You’re right. We should buy better beer.”
“You always know how to fix everything.”
Alice pushes me down and climbs on top. She leans down to kiss me and her wet hair brushes my face. When she sits up again, her face isn’t right. She morphs into a small brunette and we’re not in the apartment, we’re at the Beat Hotel in a room filled with broken furniture. Her face changes into a distorted combination of Candy and Alice. There’s pressure in my head, like hands are pulling me apart from inside. I try to make sense of the woman’s contorting face but I can’t.
My vision explodes into different spectrums of light. I fall a long way, no longer seeing light, but separate photons working their way through the air.
My eyes snap open. I’m lying flat on my ass. The angel took control and pulled me out of Mason’s hallucination. For the first time in a long time, I’m glad the angel is there.
I say, “Damn. Can I get a six-pack of that stuff before I go? That was more fun than trucker speed.”
The prayer hands caught me off guard the first time, so when Mason curves his fingers into a new configuration, I throw up a defensive shield.
His hex flies past me and hits the office’s big double doors. They turn bone white and fall apart, the dry wood turning to dust before it hits the floor.
That prick almomant prickst hit me with a ball of time. I’ve never tried that. I’m going to have to steal the idea.
I hit Mason with a quick series of hexes, alternating ice and fire, freezing and heating his skin so it splits open like the fault lines in the street. Follow it up with shots of pure pain to make his nerve endings sing. I finish by tossing a dozen pit vipers Mason’s way. Their venom dissolves skin, turning blisters into what look like third-degree burns. They swarm Mason. I hear Alice gasp.
Mason isn’t moving. The vipers haven’t hit him that many times, but he seems out of it. I can’t hear a heartbeat or his breathing. It could be anaphylactic shock.
Standing over him, I should at least be able to read that he’d had life in him once. When I touch his body, it falls to the floor like candy glass. Touching the phantasm broke the illusion. I spin around, looking for the real Mason.
Something crunches through my left shoulder. The pain turns off my brain. When I’m thinking again, I realize I’ve been stabbed three more times. I mumble a healing spell, but Mason is ahead of me, delivering a counterspell before I’ve finished mine. I’m suddenly exhausted. The angel reaches down and reads my body. There’s something funny in my blood all of a sudden, but it’s a Hellion brew he doesn’t recognize. I fall to my knees and Mason pushes me down onto my back.
“I always admired your black knife. So, when I couldn’t make a key to the Room, I made myself a knife. I think I even made some improvements. Let me show you.”
He jabs the blade into me just under the collarbone and makes a downward cut to my sternum. He does this again on the other side so there’s a big V sliced into my chest. He carefully puts the tips of the blade into the bottom of the V and pulls down my body, heading south of the border. Even through the pain I can tell he’s not trying to kill me. He’s looking for something. He drags the knife down my chest and something clinks. He’s found the key. If he’s going for my heart, I’ll return the favor. I shoot my hand out and through his skin and bones, feeling around inside his chest cavity.
But whatever is in my blood is making it hard to keep my eyes open. Mason is playing operation, cutting me up like a weekend surgeon, but it doesn’t even hurt anymore. I have my hand in his chest, but when I find his heart, I don’t have the strength to grab it. My hand falls out of him as my muscles decide it’s break time. I can’t even keep my eyes open. It finally occurs to me that this isn’t sleep. I’m dying.
The last thing I see before I’m gone is Mason pulling a piece of glowing metal from my chest. Then the lights go out.
AND I’M REALLY no-shit, no-fake-outs-or-take-backs, no-paralyzing-spells-or-glamours dead. I don’t know how I know I’m dead, but I do and all I have are questions. Like, where’s all the light coming from? I thought death would be a lot blacker than this. Also, it feels like I’m stuck in someone el, In someose’s death because this one is two sizes too small. Death doesn’t feel much like dying. More like being on a crowded bus. And what’s with all the jagged edges that keep poking me? Maybe I’m still stuck in my dead body while it’s on ice. Fucking great. My body’s gone because one asshole stabbed me and now my soul is going to get the flu because another asshole stuck me in a morgue deep freeze. I fucking hate Mason. He can even make death a pain in the ass.
Somewhere far, far away, Alice is screaming. Then Mason screams. A pattern is developing. I don’t know what’s going on, but someone’s moved my body. It’s dark again, but I’m not on ice anymore. There’s more screaming. It hurts my ears and I would really appreciate it if whoever’s doing it would shut the fuck up and let me be dead. I sit up to tell them that, but it feels like I gained a thousand pounds since I died. My head and arm weigh a hundred pounds each. I open my eyes to see what’s wrong with them, but they’re fine.
Why are my eyes open if I’m dead? And why is there a second me standing there with Mason in one hand and a Gladius in the other? Alice kneels down in front of me.
“Are you all right?”
I try to tell her yes but all that comes out is, “Being dead is stupid.”
Did I say that? I’m not sure, but it’s true. I’m pretty sure I’m alive again because there’s a big hole in my chest and it hurts like I got shot with rock salt and porcupine quills.
The other me drops Mason, kneels down, and puts his hand against my chest. I feel the hole closing, the bone, muscle, and skin knitting back together. I stare at the other me and my face stares back at me.
“Goddammit, did someone cut my face off again?”
The other me helps me to my feet. This close I see that he’s exactly me. He’s me without the scars and eleven years younger.
“How do you feel?” asks the other me.
“Like Lazarus if Jesus brought him back to life by having Mike Tyson use him as a speed bag.”