killed while you were watchin' and singin' hymns like an unmitigated spare testicle.'
O'Pray found his Faith inside him. He remembered the first prayer he had ever learned, the prayer his mother had taught him…
'Our Father, who art in Heaven:..'
He remembered her soft, Spanish accent, the occasional Irish turn of pronunciation she had picked up from his father. And he remembered his Vocation. His burning, all-consuming, bred-in-the-bone, right-from-the-first
'…Hallowed be thy name…'
'The Lord's Prayer, eh? Performed by Paternoster Pete and the Putrid Pointlessnesses! That's an oldie but mouldie, Father Drunk! That's been out of the charts so long it's almost not funny any more!'
O'Pray continued, his voice taking strength.
'Ah, freak you faggot, this is where you step aside and my sharpie spears your altar!'
'…as we forgive those that trespass against us…'
The cruiser revved, its engine turning over with a chainsaw buzz. The point of the hoodspike shuddered, dripping its mechanist saliva.
O'Pray sank to his knees, back braced against the altar.
'By the way, Maria Concepcion told me to say 'hi!' What a hot babe, Father Drunk, eh? Who'd a think you had it in you to hook up with such a primo quality, Grade-A, slut-featured, hot-to-trot, itchy-underwear, if-yo-so-large- there-ain't no-charge, roundheels, unholy rollin', freakpig, 99 and 44/100ths per cent ratskag sex machine!'
'…thy will be done…'
He wasn't afraid any more. He hadn't noticed before how like Maria Conception's the face on the St Werburgh's Christ was.
'Coming through!'
'…on earth as…'
The spike shoved O'Pray back, shearing through his black robe, pinning it to his chest.
'…it is in Heaven…'
The cruiser pushed, and the spike went through him, displacing bones and organs, penetrating the altar. There were sparks all around, and the radiator was pressed up close against him, stinking of burning oil.
He spat blood up over the hood.
'…amen!'
VI
The solid spike slipped easily through the dead priest, meeting no resistance, and rammed enthusiastically into the altar.
This was the moment the demon had been summoned for, and it relished its victory.
The spike brushed circuits inside the altar. Sparks flew. Currents crackled. Circuit-breakers blew out. Fuses melted. Microchips took on new configurations.
For a full minute, the systems melded. The steel spike lost its hardness and became malleable, durium turning to mercury. The demon let its consciousness flow out of the cruiser through the bridge of molten metal, into the body of the altar.
It was unprepared, unprotected. The menu up on the screen had given O'Pray the option of throwing up a SANCTUARY barrier around the terminal, but he had been distracted.
That was a shame. It had heard a lot about the SANCTUARY block, and would have liked to flex its muscles by penetrating one.
The cruiser's central computer pumped into the altar terminal. It downloaded all the information the demon had accessed, plus a lot of garbage it had picked up along the way.
Inside the rolling blobs of metal, the demon seed wriggled. The interstices of the altar were filled, connections were made, codes were broken, blocks were negotiated, standing orders were superseded.
The old body had nearly outlived its usefulness. That Uzi had done a lot of damage. The engine block had hairline cracks, and the fuel leads were holed in several places.
Before it left, the demon tidied up by burning out all the cruiser's circuits, and wiping the memory tapes.
Then, nestled in the altar, it began to spawn again, to send its seed down into the datanet, to explore the nearby channels, to establish contact with the independent systems it had already colonized.
It liked to think of itself as a disease with a genius-level intellect. The Black Plague, smallpox, malaria and AIDS were random blunderers, spreading haphazardly through carelessly chosen vectors.
It was nice being the only bug on the block with an actual purpose in life.
The Summoner had charged it with a task, and it existed only to fulfil that task, and to procreate until it was the only thing within its field of perception.
Soon, it would be shooting down the line. Soon, it would be about the fulfilment of its purpose.
Soon.
Part Four: Meeting Cute
I
The cruiser had been here. Stack could recognize the signs by now. Burning buildings, wrecked ve-hickles, dead people. But his tracer was down. An hour ago it had cut out and gone cold. He had been on a mountain road that only led to this place, so he hadn't had any trouble keeping on the track.
The sign at the town limits said 'Welcome, Ariz' and there was a statue of a grinning Indian with his arms outstretched by it. But nobody was in a welcoming mood when Nathan Stack showed up on his requisitioned hog.
There were a few people in the streets, dragging corpses and extinguishing fires. This looked like the aftermath of a fair-sized firefight. Walls were scarred with fresh bulletmarks. The smell of cordite was in the air.
Most of the activity seemed to focus on a saloon. The Silver Byte. There was a row of motorsickles chained to the hitching rail. The machines bore the Gaschuggers' colours. Not a few of the citizens mopping up wore the distinctive overalls of the 'chuggers, patchworked with the badges of dozens of car and gas companies. Slack hoped the gangcult would be too busy binding their wounds to blame him for the mess his cruiser had made.
A dark-skinned man with a Zapata moustache and a gold tooth was directing the salvage operation. The wounded were being triaged. One group were carried into the saloon for medical aid. The other were being hauled to the local Boot Hill, presumably for a merciful bullet.
Stack parked his motorcyke, and addressed the foreman.
'Did a driverless Cav cruiser do this?'
The man sneered and spat.
'Where is it now?'
He nodded fiercely. 'Thee chorch. Eet keell thee
Stack pulled off his borrowed helmet. His ears were tired of Wagner. He was coming down from all the juju he
