Damn Him to Hell

But the turd bastard had turned his back on Andre. Always a mistake. Picking up my metal contraption, Andre rammed it even harder than I had across the jerk’s balding skull. This time, Thunder Voice had the sense to go down and stay down.

I wanted to be grateful, but mostly, I was annoyed that Andre had finished the job. “Tell me he’s evil and he’s a goner,” I thundered as best as I could in my feeble contralto. It’s hard for a woman to do bass. Superheroes really ought to sound heroic. I snapped on my flashlight so I could see where Andre had got to and make sure Thunder Voice didn’t come around.

Andre had dropped beside Paddy, who lay sprawled across the floor in a bed of glass. “Define evil,” he said, lifting Paddy’s eyelids. Paddy groaned, indicating he was still alive, and my red rage retreated to its hiding place, replaced by my stupid conscience.

Leave it to Andre to hit on exactly the argument I’d been having with myself. “Is the shit redeemable?” I asked, forgetting to thunder. After nearly breaking a man’s skull and almost getting shot, I was more confused than angry. Usually, I damned people to hell when I was blind mad. In my current state, I probably couldn’t fry bacon. So I was hoping Thunder Voice only sounded like a demon and wasn’t actually one.

“From all reports, Ferguson’s a pervert, a yes man with no spine, and probably a coward. He hit a defenseless old man. What does that make him?”

Crap. I’d seen Ferguson’s computer files. Looking at pornography was disgusting and illegal if he was distributing. He was certainly guilty of breaking the law, but no one had given me an objective definition of evil. He had thundered in a not-normal voice, hit an old man, and shot at me. Except Andre and I didn’t exactly belong here, so there was that crummy self-defense argument. Demons ought to have horns and tails or cackle madly or be more identifiable if I had to be both judge and jury. Maybe I should read more comic books and figure out how superheroes made these decisions.

I was ready to resign my position as a daughter of Saturn. How the devil was I supposed to envision justice in this case? I kicked the fat turd to see if he would roar some more, but he was out cold.

“It makes him a toad,” I decided. Inspired by a SAVE KERMIT poster on the wall, I resisted temptation. “He can spend the rest of his days eating insects and doing good instead of harm.”

I visualized a toad. I was more familiar with horny toads than garden ones, and perverts ought to be labeled horny, except I knew horny toads were actually lizards. Pity. For lack of any better idea, I pictured something that could have been a frog or a toad. Or Kermit.

Andre nearly fell over backward when Thunder Voice shrank and bellowed in protest. Bullfrog was my guess. I gaped in astonishment. I hadn’t actually expected my image to work.

Still bellowing, Ferguson hopped under a cabinet and out of sight.

Really, I scared myself when I did these things, and I’d sure put the fear of God into Andre’s eyes. He was watching me as if I were the demon in the room.

25

I glared at Andre as if I’d turn him into a toad, too, if he gave me any lip. I was pretty shaky, but I’d be damned if I’d let him know that I’d never turned a man into a bullfrog before. I’m a smart-mouth with grandiose dreams, but until Max’s death, I’d never done anything more dramatic than have a corrupt provost fired. And myself expelled. Consequences were always a bitch.

Of course, for all I knew, I was already damned for my incompetence, and turning someone into a bullfrog would get me sent directly to the devil. I needed a scorecard to keep track of my failures, but I dared him to come up with a better solution.

Shaking his head—probably in disbelief—Andre lifted Paddy’s shoulders to examine him for injuries. “Good thinking,” was all he said. Cool, Andre, really cool.

Under normal circumstances, I would probably have found a seat until I was certain my knees would hold me up.

This time, I’d turned a two-hundred-pound bald guy into a toad. Or a bullfrog. As if I had a magic wand. What in hell was I? And there was that bad word again. Witches turned men into toads, right? Daughters of Saturn did bullfrogs?

I’d spent a lot of time months ago worrying that I was hallucinating, but now that I knew I wasn’t, I really needed to get my head together and deal with my weirdness.

Before I could collapse and turn into a wuss worrying about the toad’s family, the ground shook again.

Andre and I exchanged glances. In perfect accord for a change, we moved Paddy under a sturdy desk and raced into the corridor, following the thrumming sound.

We were on the right level. The roar of an engine grew louder and emanated from the second lab. Andre had his gun out, but I had a notion that shooting motors didn’t lead to happy results. What did engines have to do with chemical plants? And why the devil was this one shaking the ground? Did Acme breed mad scientists? Did swamps breed mosquitoes? We were talking the Zone here.

Magic, Paddy had said. Maybe I’d better start believing in the improbable. Hell, I was improbable. I’d turned a guy into a bullfrog. Could I do the same to a machine? Were there any limits to what I could do?

One of my limits was my annoyingly overdeveloped conscience, with the occasional embellishment of logic —except when I went into red-rage mode.

The second lab was as large as the first, and equally cluttered with counters and equipment. No dangerous machinery. But on the far end was what should have been a closet door—except it was shaking.

Dodging counters, we crossed the lab and, without discussion, leaned against the wall on either side of the vibrating door. Andre turned the knob, holding his automatic ready. I had my flashlight. The door opened inward. No one shouted or started shooting.

Cautiously, I peered around the doorjamb. Andre hissed at me, but one of us had to do it. At the sight within, I straightened in awe. The shaking was so bad that I seriously considered zapping the whole room to hell. If any machine was capable of going down, it ought to be this one. I stepped inside to examine it up close.

I was no mechanic, but this contraption resembled nothing more than a giant boiler energized by an enormous generator connected to . . . I squinted and followed the various pipes and gauges up to the ceiling. A calliope? A steam organ? Steampunk, anyone?

Pipes went down into the ground as well. I studied them with distrust, expecting pipelines to hell and demonic bats. Nervously, I fought the urge to zap now and ask questions later. Only my earlier notion that people needed this plant kept me from attempting to create a bomb crater.

Although from the size of this machine and the enormity of the vibrations it was sending out, I suspected that if it blew, it would take Baltimore with it.

“That’s what happens when a bunch of eggheads think they know engineering,” Andre said in disgust, studying the contraption. “And that thing’s likely to blow at any minute unless there’s an automatic shutoff valve.”

So not how I wanted to end my days—as a greasy puddle in the sky.

“Pull the plug?” I suggested valiantly. I had a sense that the shudders were sending gas or steam or some kind of heated energy up through the pipes. It was hot in here, and that ozone stink I’d noticed with the green cloud made my nose twitch. The damned thing was loud. And scary. And I really wanted to get the hell out and damn it into outer space.

My reward for resisting was realizing I was judging by appearances again. I didn’t know the machine was bad. I only suspected it caused earthquakes and gas clouds. I bit my tongue on another dammit to hell. We were risking our lives for a damned machine that was about to rattle my teeth out of my jaw.

But the demonic bats in Gloria’s cellar had shaken my cynical belief that hell was here on earth. If demons really were dancing around in eternal flame, could this contraption be pumping vapors from sulfurous zones? Was that their magic? Shouldn’t I be a priest instead of a lawyer if I had to confront Satan’s