She nods.
“Go play with yours and leave mine alone.”
“I want to watch,” he says.
“Then get out of my way.”
Lula disappears and comes back with a big jerry can. I can smell the gasoline from here. She kicks Traven.
“Turn him over on his back and drag him outside on the canvas. We don’t want to break the circle. I want plenty of room to see him squirm while he burns.”
Teddy smiles down at me.
“Burn yours if you want. I’m eating mine raw.”
Fish and stones fall outside. Traven looks scared. He doesn’t want to help Lula kill me or go out into the supernatural rain. I know the look on his face. He’s vapor-locked. His brain can’t process the choices. He’s a good man and good men shouldn’t be in places like this having to do these things.
I feel a tiny earthquake. Teddy screams and drops the Imp’s skull. Tries to turn and falls backward into a hole.
All I can see is the top of the hole. Teddy’s hands scrabble around the edges trying to pull himself out while Cherry’s bony arms pull him back down. Lula points the gun at Traven and sidles up to the hole.
“What the fuck?”
She’s disgusted. The dead are misbehaving. You have no idea, lady.
Lula points the pistol into the hole and fires shot after shot. She doesn’t see Traven. He picks up the Imp’s skull and hits Lula from behind. She drops the pistol into the hole and falls to her knees. Traven hits her again and knocks her against the wall. He pushes Lula upright and pins her arms.
“Do you want to go to Hell, young lady?”
“Fuck you.”
She spits at him. Traven leans in like he’s going to kiss her. Black vapor and dust stream from his mouth into hers. I watch with Lucifer’s eyes, as her skin, already stained black with sin signs, turns wet and sloppy like she’s been dipped in hot tar. Her body sags. Traven has to hold her up to continue the Dolorosa.
“Enough” is all I can get out. Traven stops. I’ve never seen that look of fury on his face before. It’s happened. He wanted to do more and he walked into the belly of the beast. Ghouls. Jabbers. Murderers and hit men. All in a day. The good man that came in the house is gone. The man I’m looking at is still good but in an angry, wounded way that matches Traven’s lined soldier’s face.
Traven looks to where Lula slid down the wall into a sitting position. She’s unconscious and twitching. Eyes rolled back and breathing hoarse as her body tries to absorb the Dolorosa poison.
I whisper, “Help me.”
That wakes Traven up. He looks at me in a dazed way. Recognizes what’s happened and flips through all the books in his head. He takes the knife from inside my coat and slits the canvas, ripping out a piece to break the circle. Suddenly I can take a decent breath. I can even stand. Slowly. I spit blood and go to where Traven is bent over Candy.
I collapse onto my knees next to her body.
“She’s alive,” Traven says. “But the other woman. I think I might have killed her.”
“Who cares? Dead now or dead later. Either way she’s hellbound.”
He looks at me with a mixture of sorrow and shame. The preacher inside is still hanging on by his fingernails. Traven understands damning someone but not being an executioner. Maybe later I’ll tell him that the first one is always the hardest. Maybe not.
“Do you know how to do mouth-to-mouth?”
“Yes,” he says. “The Red Cross came to the seminary.”
“Get her to the car and do what you can. She’s just paralyzed now but we don’t want any brain damage, do we?”
“No.”
“Get her out of here.”