“Where are we going?” she says.
I look at her in the rearview.
“Back to Bill’s. Unless you want to stop for chicken and waffles.”
She stares back at the burning hillside for a minute.
“I have a thought. We have to go back to where Norris Quay took us.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Do you trust me?”
Something I never thought I’d say to an angel comes out of my mouth. “Of course.”
“Then drive.”
THE VAN SPUTTERS and coughs as we make our way back down Highland. Everyone is bone goddamn tired. It makes the drive feel even longer than before. Eventually, though, we cross the 105. I pull us up to the gates of the treatment plant and the van shudders to a stop.
Bill opens the side door and we help Hesediel out of the van. Back on flat ground, she can walk again, but she’s slow and moves with a bad limp. The skin is cracking under the burned part of her face so that the black is cut through with thin streaks of livid red.
We enter the plant and head to the treatment tank Quay took us to earlier. The place doesn’t smell any better on a second visit. She goes to the tank.
“Think of it. A whole war over this,” says Hesediel.
I walk up beside her.
“It’s going to go on for a lot longer, isn’t it? If all the bad guys fight like Hadraniel?”
“Forever, possibly.”
“Now there’s a pretty thought,” says Bill.
Hesediel turns back to us.
“But if we, now, could destroy the source of black milk, it would end sooner. Correct?”
I shrug.
“Of course. But like Quay said, we can’t exactly execute several million Hellions.”
“Maybe we don’t have to,” Hesediel says. “This is the source of black milk. We must destroy this.”
“But those Hellions are just going to keep shitting and shitting,” says Bill. “Destroying this batch won’t stop that.”
“I misspoke,” Hesediel says. “Everything all of us have done and seen and learned comes together here. Your return to Hell. Bill and Candy’s offer of help. The destruction of Wormwood down here. We have a chance. A single moment to destroy it all.”
She looks at me.
“And perhaps kill Wormwood in the mortal world. Without them, black milk will be useless.”
“But how do we do it?” says Bill. “You two incinerated the hell out of that forest back there, but I don’t think effluent even this vile will burn.”
“Not burning,” she says. “Befoulment.”
Hesediel takes a few steps away from the holding tank back toward the van.
“I’m glad I met you both,” she says. “I’ve defended mortals, but I never truly thought much of them, Bill. Thank you for opening my eyes.”