A Lower Deep

beside him in a lake of his blood.

Self and I looked up at the same moment to see four miscarriages bobbing on silver cords overhead, their translucent, vein-heavy skin shimmering in the dark sunlight.

Another psychic cord trailed disconnected down in the dirt.

'Oh shit,' I said.

Coincidence didn't exist anymore. I should've realized that I had met her on the plane for a reason.

Betty Verfenstein moved closer, holding a butcher knife, her pink hair curled into little wings from where it had been spattered with Fane's blood.

The elderly plump woman gave her defiant, rough laugh. Three days ago it had filled me with a pleasant warmth but this time it just scared the hell out of me.

Fane was trying to talk, sputtering as his belly continued to bubble up around his fingers. He stared directly at me. 'Don't . . .'

I kneeled and thought about trying to console him, but Fane was in agony and I knew he enjoyed it. A martyr lives to die. 'What?'

He seized hold of my arm with his dripping fist. 'Don't bring me . . . back. . .'

'I won't,' I told him, and he just had time to nod thanks before he was gone.

'He was going to kill you,' Betty said. 'He was sneaking up on you ready to cut your throat.'

I believed her, but that didn't change a damn thing. I looked into her face more closely than I had before, and I finally noticed that she had a glass eye. My spell had worked three days ago, when I sent my curse back through time.

'Betty, it was you.' My voice sounded delicate, much more frail than hers. 'You murdered your own daughter.'

'Sacrifices had to be made.'

My mouth opened and it took me a while to get anything out. 'But why?'

'I did not fail the test of Abraham.'

Cool! What's your GPA?

Betty Verfenstein wasn't raving and didn't look insane. She was composed and calm and had the same air of controlled fanaticism as almost everyone else in this land of grudges. She had no more or less zeal about killing her family as the men forced to murder their loved ones and commit suicide at Masada.

'I had to keep you walking on the path, following the will of the Lord. The messiah is about to return. My daughter will sit in glory at the hand of the Father tonight, with all the martyrs, beloved and blessed above all others.'

There's gonna be a full house sitting at the hands of God tonight.

Dad wandered past, playing with the floating miscarriages. Their fishlike faces peered at him and he peered back, prodding them with his fingers. The psychic cord lying in the dust had been chewed through. Theresa had learned the truth about her mother and had at last escaped the old lady.

'Who told you my name?' I asked. 'I've always known your name.'

'Who told you?'

'Since I was a child I've had visions. Our meeting on the airplane, your father's face covered in foundation, and wearing his ten-gallon cowboy hat. You were a ridiculous sight. I even knew you'd put my eye out, but it had to be done. Theresa dreamed of you too.'

'It makes no sense.'

'It had to be done.'

'But why slaughter Bethany Shiya?'

'She'd achieved the goal set out before her. You laid with her and wailed for her as God demanded. Once that was done, the great harlot had to be purged. But the whore of Babylon wouldn't leave the woman's body, so she had to die. Don't look so shocked, could you really have expected anything else?'

'And Gawain? Why Gawain?'

She flinched as if struck. 'That pariah! Don't speak of it. It did not belong in this world.'

'He was my friend!'

Craning her neck, Betty looked over the mighty stone remains of Megiddo, watching the coven sway in harmony together, chanting. Her eyes bloomed with fear and frustration. She grew shrill. 'They've already begun and you left the circle. How could you have done that? Why did you leave the circle?'

'It doesn't mean anything.'

'You must fulfill your duty in helping to raise the returned messiah!'

She's working to assure the second coming of Christ? With a name like Verfenstein?

'You left the circle! You've a fate to carry out!'

'I am,' I said.

'No, no, it's not supposed to happen this way. I've watched over and protected you. You must lead them. God told me!'

'I'm leaving. Whatever happens, I want no part of it.'

'You fool, you damned fool!'

'Listen, lady, I'm sick of all you-'

She raised her knife and lunged for me before I could get my hands up. She had an amazing compact strength and her leap carried her right to my throat. Watch it! Self shouted. He dove but only caught a few pink wisps of hair in his hands. The blade descended.

My father shoved me out of the way.

The enormous blade drove into his belly up to the hilt, and he let out a soft chuckle.

He reached out with both arms and hugged Betty Verfenstein to him, pressing his painted nose to hers. She stared wide-eyed and started letting out choked, terrified cries. He planted a kiss on her forehead, and when he finally let her go she backed up into Fane's blood, slid, and tripped over his corpse. The old lady hit the ground hard, and her head snapped back and struck the rocky terrain with the sound of steak slapped down on a butcher's block.

She was dead in less than a minute.

It was too easy a resolution.

Whoa, Self said. That was quick.

Dad tugged the knife from his midriff and let it fall. There was barely any blood and it didn't affect him at all as he skipped back toward the circle.

The coven hadn't noticed a thing. They were beyond such dimensions. The ceremony continued on course, the twelve members lost at the bottom of the abyss inside themselves. They'd gone too far and too deep, and now struggled to remember who they were. In order to evoke a spirit you must have complete knowledge of it and the purpose it will serve. They stood at cross-ends, ignorant and unprepared. Motes of energy poured from Jebediah's eyes and bled into the air.

The sun became as black as a sackcloth of hair and ashes. My new flesh burned once again, and at the same time I was freezing.

Elijah's fury and love for Danielle swept over me so that my skin tingled and the center of my brain rang. If she hadn't loved me I would've become just as relentless and savage. A shadow blotted out the sky and fell across the entire width of the circle. Self tugged at my wrist. I slowly turned around.

The mammoth Nephilim had mutated further. Elijah's influence and delusions had altered its colossal body into the Beast of Revelation. It no longer drooled down its massive silken neck, but instead walked grim-jawed and frowning in rage. His ire fueled the great beast with seven heads and seven horns and ten crowns. Elijah's pride had given us the Red Dragon.

Man, Self said, that is just so nasty!

The Nephilim's mouth still hung open in a centuries-old cry. If Elijah was still in there, then he too had mutated, and so had his hatred. Perhaps the hybrid's two hundred angelic fathers screamed in some hollow between heaven and limbo.

The body of the Beast had matured, though it was no larger than before. I could see its heart stirring, that giant chest pulsing, though the Nephilim didn't breathe. Although it had no genitalia, or at least it hadn't before,