“Hilario.”
He jumped. Rachel. Right beside him. Her eyes still blazed green. The tendrils of vines still held her aloft. The crown of sweet smelling roses still hovered over her flowing dark hair.
And the heatless green fire licked over her body.
“Quickly,” she said, “Your bloodwood box.”
Marco raised his pistol. “Can’t I just shoot the cockamamie thing?” he asked.
“No,” she said. She turned to Hilario. “We must hurry. The end of the world is coming.”
Well, of course it was.
59
The van was crowded.
Hilario clenched the steering wheel. The skin on his back crawled. Too many beings in his personal space.
And why, why, why did they have to bring the corpse of Lord Igidbon along? Was that really necessary?
Couldn’t they have at least tied him to the roof? Now the dark lord’s ammonia stinking blood stained the van’s floor. How was he ever going to get that cleaned out?
Assuming there was a later.
Assuming there was a normal world to go back to.
Assuming he survived in any form.
The van rattled and creaked down the narrow, rough road. At an alarming, white knuckle speed. Even whiter than his white gloves.
There was nothing beyond the van’s weak headlights. All was black. If it weren’t for the gray rocks lining the sides of the road, he would have thought they were floating through empty space.
Though the ride would have been a lot smoother if that were the case.
He glanced at the rearview mirror. The flickering green light from Rachel’s fire made the back well-lit.
Odom the Paladin sat on Igidbon’s corpse. The paladin had chopped off the dark lord’s great, black wings with his sword before tossing the corpse unceremoniously in the back.
Hence the blood smeared on the floor. Blood that stank of ammonia and, strangely an undertone of licorice.
Licorice. One of the few foods he refused to eat.
Maybe that was the reason.
Roger the ogre sat beside Odom. Also on Igidbon’s corpse. His former boss. The runty ogre picked at his teeth with a filthy toenail. Roger seemed unperturbed by the death of his employer. Though he kept a wary eye on the other passengers. At least a couple of them.
Rodney the delivery driver was propped in the corner behind them. Still unconscious.
Either that or the guy was a champion sleeper.
Detective Marco sat behind the passenger seat, the bloodwood box containing Queezleyan on his lap. The detective’s eyes darted back and forth. Torn between the other passengers in the back with him.
Two of those three passengers were the Sapphire Witch and Rachel. The Sapphire Witch lay face up on the floor. She wasn’t quite unconscious. A low keening issued from her throat. Her head slowly rocked back and forth. The blue lenses of her brass rimmed goggles glowed and dimmed, glowed and dimmed. Sweat beaded her brow.
He hadn’t know gem witches could sweat.
One of the many things he’d learned this night.
Rachel straddled the Sapphire Witch, her knees on the metal floor. Tendrils and vines still wrapped around her arms, legs and torso. The crown of roses still hung above her head, suspended by tendrils from the network running up her back. The flowers were closed tight.
Which was too bad. Their smell could have helped cover the stench of Lord Igidbon’s blood.
Green flames still ran over her body. Though the flames held no heat.
They were quite disturbing to look at.
Rachel held her hands to the sides of the Sapphire Witch’s head. She seemed to be saying some kind of incantation under her breath. It was more a low humming than actual words. No words that he could seem to catch, anyway.
Or maybe it was the sound from that other passenger that was interfering.
It was definitely making his skin crawl. Crawling like it wanted to ooze off his body and jump out the window to get away from what was sitting directly behind the driver’s seat.
Not that he could blame it. It was taking all his will to stay seated as he was. A single moment’s loss of concentration would send him tumbling out the door and screaming into the darkness.
Whatever was out there in the crumbling domain of Lord Igidbon couldn’t be any worse than having a black angel sitting behind him.
He couldn’t see it, of course. The mirror didn’t show the creature’s reflection. But he sure as heck could feel it.
A coldness. A presence that had a kind of gravity to it. It pulled at him.
And of course the sound…
A kind of hiss. Which the more he listened to it, sounded more like a distant sizzle. Like the air boiled as it touched the creature.
If someone had ever told him he would be carrying a black angel in his van, he would have nervously laughed. Then he would have made sure he never owned a van.
Maybe he would have gotten a bicycle instead.
Vans seemed to invite passengers. Something he hadn’t thought about when he got this one. A van had just seemed convenient for his business.
Who would have thought?
He should have. If strange and terrible things were going to happen, they were probably going to happen to him.
Like the last passenger in the van. The one in the passenger seat beside him.
The first one on this seemingly endless light.
And the one who seemed to be at the root of all this trouble.
His friend Larry Sparrow. Formerly living owner of the the now smoldering heap of rubble that was Hilario’s favorite pizza place.
Larry’s ghostly form huddled on the seat, his arms wrapped around himself. His blue glow had dimmed since they left Lord Igidbon’s terror spider cavern. Or maybe it had dimmed when Rachel entered the van.
Larry stared at the floor. His head didn’t move
