dead alien worshippers, the blazing human candles of the burning bodyguards, my compass the bright and mindless hymns of the faithful.
Somehow I find my way to the other side, and an empty vestry in the middle of a temple full of lost souls. And that is where the Nazgul find me amidst the other mortal wreckage, burned and half-blinded by the light, clutching a broken camera full of secrets.
Epilogue
AFTERMATH
THE DUSTUP IN THE SLEEPER’S MAUSOLEUM HAPPENED LAST month, but I’ve only been home for a couple of days. Mo was just about mad with worry when I rang the doorbell at seven o’clock, bleary-eyed and sweaty, straight off the red-eye from DC to Heathrow. Economy class, of course; it may be painful, but I’m not stupid—after the mission ends, it’s back to business as usual.
I slept for about six hours, ate, slept for about eighteen hours, and spent the next day in a zombie-like haze. Today’s the first day I’ve been sufficiently compos mentis to go back to the office. Lockhart, I gather, is chewing the carpet. (
You can blame the Black Chamber for the delay. Officious as any other component of the labyrinthine American secret state, they had to first satisfy themselves that I was not, in fact, an enemy agent. The carte blanche helped—or at least convinced them to make some phone calls first, rather than shooting me out of hand— but was not sufficient on its own to dig me out of the crater I had landed in. However, some pointed nagging from somewhere up the ladder at Dansey House—up the ladder from
Not that they were keeping me in twenty-four-hour lockdown in the brig at Quantico; I had my own private five-star hospital room to occupy while recovering from superficial burns and concussion, to say nothing of suspected neurological insults that required multiple appointments with an MRI machine to rule out Krantzberg syndrome.
Persephone and Johnny—if they survived—I don’t know about. They disappeared and the Nazgul won’t tell me anything, and I wasn’t asking questions that might give away anything they’re not supposed to know I know. However, I’ve got some fragments, and I can speculate:
I can infer that Persephone did
Did she succeed? I don’t know. Like I said, she and Johnny disappeared while I was lying on my back in the vestry seeing stars.
I’m pretty certain that Persephone saw to it that Schiller didn’t make it out of the temple alive after he tried to sacrifice Johnny. She’s nothing if not possessive.
I’m pretty sure Schiller cut Johnny’s throat—I saw the blood. And the blood of two elders of the priesthood of the Sleeper were spilled upon the altar while it was hooked up to a grid powered by the prayers of thousands of god-raped worshippers. But the Sleeper—or Jesus, depending on which eschatology you choose to run with—did not clamber out of his sarcophagus and start rampaging across middle America. Maybe they got something wrong? Mind you, the tremors under the plateau suggest someone turning over in their sleep. The fimbulwinter that gripped central Colorado prior to Schiller’s summoning is very worrying, but the thaw afterwards suggests the information bleed between the walls of the worlds was staunched in time. Or at least prevented from turning into a flood.
Which finally brings me back to the present, and the inevitable fallout from the operation. Which, I gather, will involve a lot of committee meetings that I won’t trouble you with.
CLASSIFIED APPENDIX
GOD GAME RAINBOW
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Persephone raises her head slowly and peers out from behind cover.
She and Howard are crouched at one end of a roughly rectangular space about the size of an aircraft hanger. There are doors in the middle of each wall, and rows of strangely shaped pews—cast or grown rather than built— marching the length of the floor. A raised dais or stage at one end supports a huge stone sarcophagus, and an active summoning grid at the opposite side of the temple from the door they entered by hangs in midair before the far entrance, lit from beyond by the harsh glare of electric lights.
“Hand of Glory,” she says, holding out her left hand as a familiar figure dives through the gate back to the real world, followed by the harsh crackle of gunfire.
“I’ve got it in here somewhere…” Howard mumbles apologetically behind her as she searches for a target. The shots cease; instead, four more figures rush through the gate, chasing Johnny. They’re clearly armed. There are more figures, indistinctly seen against the back-lighting of the gate.
The situation is as bad as anything Persephone’s ever seen: she, Howard, and Johnny against at least four gunmen who control the egress they need to escape through—and Johnny wouldn’t be running away if he thought he stood a chance. It may, in fact, be non-survivable.
Howard finally produces the small, gnarled lump, then fumbles for a lighter as Persephone waits impatiently. Seconds stretch out interminably. Three more figures come through the gate. Meanwhile, behind her, she is acutely aware of the feeders driving the dead husks of their victims forward and up the stairs. If Howard can control them there might be some hope of salvaging the situation…otherwise, not.
Howard clumsily fumbles a cigarette lighter in her direction.
“Make a distraction,” she says, careful to keep the incipient tremor out of her voice—whether driven by fear or anger, adrenalin surges are infectious and can be devastating. “I’m going to sort this out.” She puts down her pistol temporarily, flicks the lighter, and ignites the pigeon’s foot. Then she pockets the lighter, picks up her pistol in her free hand, and stands up.
Mind still, calm, in the moment:
