made me look strong enough and crazy enough to be part of the war. Now I have to move on to the hard part, but all I want is a cigarette, a drink, and a nap. I probably should have just blown the universe up with the Mithras when I first got back to earth. This caring about stuff is too much goddamn work.
I GO THROUGH the Door of Fire and come out in Mason’s office. It’s the last place he should come, but I know he’ll be here. People are funny. When they’re dangling at the end of a rope, they head back to where they feel most secure, even if it’s the dumbest thing they can do. But Mason is a bit smarter than your average thug. He has one thing none of those others have. He has Alice.
Mason is perched on the edge of his desk trying to affect exactly the kind of cool he doesn’t have or he wouldn’t be here. Alice is sitting in his desk chair. Her eyes are red like she’s been crying. There’s a black bone knife sticking point first into the top of the desk. It’s hard not to charge him. I can probably get him before he throws a hex. Who am I kidding? The angel in my head points out that I’m not exactly in prime shape and that attacking Mason is what haveon is we wants. I go for him. Mason grabs the knife. Alice dies again and I get to watch.
I’m not even sure I want to kill Mason anymore. I want to force-feed him Vidocq’s immortality potion. Then I’ll do to him what he did to Jack. He can hang from the chain on the balcony, a chunk of raw red meat turning in the wind for a million years.
“Are you okay?” I ask Alice.
She nods.
“Where’s Neshamah?”
She shakes her head.
“He’s dead. Aelita came with raiders. She killed him and took the crystal. Then she brought me here.”
Mason tosses the Singularity back and forth between his hands.
He says, “Do you know what this is?”
“No,” I lie. “But I have a feeling you don’t want to break it.”
He smiles.
“So you do know what it is.”
“I just try not to break anything angels steal from deities. Call it a fetish.”
“He says it’s a weapon,” says Alice.
Mason catches it with a flourish, like a juggler.
“When I couldn’t get the key to work, Aelita told me about the Singularity. It’s been my private project ever since.”
“If you want to blow up everything, you have what you need right there. Go ahead and do it.”
He holds up the crystal.
“With this? It will just start another universe and all the whole humans-versus-God-and-monsters game will start all over again. No. When this place goes I don’t want anything coming back.”
“Neshamah never said it could do that.”
“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
