I hear a rustle of leather behind me and the quiet click of a small hammer being lowered onto a small gun. Daja was playing me all along. She knew what I’d do if things went bad. I was ready for her to pull her pistol, but she had a little pocket gun—a Derringer or something—on me the whole time. Suddenly I hate and like her even more all at the same time.

“How did he make his way up the mountain?” says the Magistrate.

“Death placed him there,” says Mimir.

“Why?”

“Death’s reasons are his own. To look too closely is to risk having his gaze fall upon you.”

“I understand,” the Magistrate says.

He pats Mimir’s shoulder as her breathing returns to its normal wheeze.

“I have one more question for you,” he says, and looks at me. “The gentleman that Death so graciously brought us calls himself Mr. ZaSu Pitts. Is that, in fact, who he is? And if not, who is he really?”

I tense again. This time Daja pulls her big pistol. The barrel brushes my ear. It tickles, which pisses me off. I don’t want to go to Tartarus giggling.

Traven looks at me and I look back at him. I’m stuck between a witch, a dime-store desert prophet, and a gunslinger who wants me extremely dead. And I can’t even reach my cigarettes.

Mimir takes the bowl and tosses the burning herbs outside. She comes back to the table and, lucky me, begins mixing a whole new brew that this time is going to reveal that not only am I a big fat liar, but so is Traven. I wonder if I should tell the Magistrate who I am. But that would make us liars. We’re fucked either way. Better keep quiet and play this out.

When she gets her hoodoo herbs piled up nice and high, Mimir sets them on fire. A dull yellow smoke drifts from the bowl, filling the camper with a smell like boiling cabbage in scorched motor oil. I start to say something when the contents of the bowl flare up, sucking the smoke back inside. An orange flame rises from the bowl, kicking up sparks. When it’s about a foot high, the flame begins to turn until it’s a miniature tornado, twisting and writhing above the upturned skull.

I say, “If you’re trying to make fondue, you’re doing it wrong.”

Mimir waves a hand in my direction. I stare at her.

“What do you want? Applause?”

“She wants you to put your hand in the fire, asshole,” says Daja.

“Yeah. That’s not happening.”

“I am afraid you must,” says the Magistrate.

I look at Traven.

“What do you say, Father?”

“You were brought here for a reason,” he says. “Do as they say.”

I shake my head. “You people have a shitty way of treating guests. I’m never staying at this hotel again.” But I put out my left hand. The heat hits me at the edge of the bowl. I hesitate.

“Daja. If he does not put his hand into the flame, please shoot the father.”

I hear her pull back the hammer on the pistol.

I push my hand forward.

“Mr. Pitts,” says the Magistrate. “I believe that you are right-handed. Please use that hand.”

I look at him.

“Is Magistrate your real name? Why don’t we both put our hands in the fire?”

Daja grabs my shoulder.

I put out my right hand.

“At least I’m not going to die in Fresno.”

And in I shove my mitt into the tornado.

I’ve been burned before. I’ve been shot, stabbed, poisoned, beaten, chewed on, and called rude names. I want to say that because of my vast experience in getting my ass handed to me that the fire is no big deal. But that would be a lie. This fire is a big deal. A huge deal. A giant, flaming, goddamn, piece-of-shit, agonizing, I-want-to-rip-my-own-head-off deal.

I lower my head. Close my eyes and grit my teeth. I’m sweating like a hog tap-dancing in a sauna. I want to scream the paint off the fucking walls. But I don’t make a sound. If I’m going to end up Captain Hook at the end of this, at least they won’t get that little piece of satisfaction.

I open my eyes. The flames are more intense than before and have changed color from a deep orange to a pale blue.

I lock eyes with Mimir. She nods and waves her hand again. I start to pull my hand back, going slow because I’m not looking forward to the sight of my charred stump. The moment I move, the Magistrate leans across the table, grabs my wrist, and shoves my hand back into the flames.

I’m close enough that I could lunge across the table and shove his smug face into the tornado until his eyes burn out. But Daja has the gun on Traven. I really want to do something, but I don’t know what. The pain is really getting to me and I think about Candy and everything I’ve lost and left behind, and it’s all so goddamn sad it’s like a Roy Orbison song, so I do the only logical thing.

I start singing “In Dreams.”

The Magistrate’s face shifts to somewhere between pissed and puzzled. But I keep singing, staring into the fire. Mimir sees an opening and snatches the bowl off the table. She douses the fire and slams the bowl down hard. The Magistrate lets go of my wrist and sits down, staring at Mimir. Fuck ’em both. I pull back my hand and look it over. Not a scorch mark or even a blister. The Magistrate’s oracle has some good hoodoo.

Mimir slaps the table. “If you wish to keep my services, do not interfere with my work again,” she shouts at the Magistrate.

He holds up his hands.

“My apologies, Mimir. It will not happen again,” he says. “But what did the flame tell you?”

The oracle gets up and dumps everything outside again. When she sits down she looks at me.

“He is who he says he is.”

I feel Daja shift her weight. I don’t have to look to know her pistol is now pointed at me.

“He is Mr. Pitts?”

“Yes.”

That was unexpected. Leave it to lunatics like this guy to hitch himself to a third-rate seer. Still, it’s nice for me. I don’t have to start killing people right away.

“Thank you, Mimir. Again, my sincere apologies.”

I take a big breath and let it out, happy me and Traven are still in one piece.

The oracle gathers her gear, wheezing in the respirator. As she gets up, she gives me a look. I have no goddamn idea what it means or why she lied or why Traven and I are still alive. When she leaves I look from Daja to the Magistrate.

“I think your pet monkey is getting tired. Why don’t you throw it a banana and send it home?”

Daja smacks me on the side of the head with the gun barrel.

“Daja. It is over,” says the Magistrate. “Put your gun down. Mr. Pitts has passed his first test. He will be staying with us for the time being.”

I rub the side of my aching head and raise my eyebrows.

“First test? I am going to crucify you people on Yelp.”

Traven gets up.

“Pitts passed the test. May we go?”

The Magistrate shakes his head.

“No. Mr. Pitts I would like to leave. You I would like to stay,” he says. He looks up at Daja and frowns. “And I would like a word with you as well.”

Traven pulls me to my feet. I’m a little light-headed from the pain and it’s hard to stop rubbing my hand. The father gives me a little shove to the door. I look back at the Magistrate.

“What’s under the tarp, Roy Bean?”

“The future,” he says. “Ours and now possibly yours.”

“I’ve got my own future. I don’t need yours.”

The Magistrate gives me a tiny smile.

“Thank you, Mr. Pitts. We will talk again soon.”

On the way out I bump my shoulder into Daja’s like an annoyed sixth grader. She’s already in trouble with Dad, though, so she doesn’t say a word.

Outside, I have to lean against the side of the motor home for a minute. The fire test took more out of me than I was ever going to let those assholes see.

The camp is weirdly quiet. A handful of Hellions attend to cook fires. A few others move trucks and construction equipment around. But the vast majority of the havoc is gathered by a hill of burning crosses erected on the other side of whatever is under the tarp. Their heads are down as a group of robed creeps perform some kind of ceremony.

So, this really is a crusade after all. And now I’m part of it. Hallelujah.

I listen at the motor-home door, trying to hear if Traven is all right. But if the Magistrate got the answer he wanted from the oracle, he has no reason to hurt the father. Anyway, I can’t hear a damned thing.

I walk back to Traven’s camper thinking that maybe I’d’ve been better off if there had been a storm and it snuffed me back on the plains. It would be simpler than dealing with this sideshow.

THE SERMON BREAKS up a few minutes later. Hellions and damned souls straggle back to camp. They’re pretty buddy-buddy for a bunch of torturers and torture victims. I guess there have been weirder alliances Downtown.

Grating Hellion music blasts from a tricked-out Impala lowrider. When you get down to it—mysterious religious services aside—the havoc is like any camp. The cooks start filling dinner plates. Damned souls and Hellions argue, while others laugh or barter. Shooters load up on ammo from a Hellion APC. It has massive bullhorns on top and iron shark teeth welded on the front. Someone strapped broken mannequin parts in between the jaws. Cute gag, but where did they get dressing dummies way out in the Tenebrae? They must make runs into Hell itself, maybe even Pandemonium. That’s good news for me. If I have to make a run for it, I can disappear in ten seconds flat there. All I have to do is survive until then. When I get back to Hell I can start figuring out a way to get back home.

I wonder who Daja has spying on me? No way this bunch is letting an outsider stroll around without surveillance. There’s probably a rifle sighted on me right now. Or am I just being paranoid? Being dead has thrown me off my game. I need some privacy to figure out how much of me is left. I have some hoodoo and I didn’t bleed out. Good news there. But how strong am I? How fast? Is the angel part of me powerful enough to manifest a Gladius? And yet, for all those questions, the one that’s truly bugging me is this: Why the hell did it have to be Audsley Ishii who killed me?

I’ve fought Hellions, slimy monsters, armed-to-the-teeth mortals, scary little girls, and forgotten, pissed-off gods. And it was a third-rate shitbird I got fired from his lousy job who finally did me in. Maybe it was poetic justice. Maybe it was me getting soft. Every time I decide to take things easy or deal with my PTSD, something rotten happens. There won’t be any of that down here. Hell is a Zero Slack zone. No one gets a second chance from me down here. Which means I need weapons. But first I need something to eat and a little sleep. Dying is like the worst jet lag you’ve ever had.

Rubberneckers from the havoc wander by, but none of them will meet my eye. They just want to sniff the new meat. That’s okay. I’d do the same thing. I keep still and look as oblivious as I can. Today’s lesson, kids, is to not look for trouble until I have a better handle on the situation. I’m perfectly prepared to look a little dumb if that’s what it takes.

Just as I’m getting bored and cranky, Traven comes out of the Magistrate’s motor home.

He gestures and we head to his camper.

“You were in there for a while,” I say.

“These things take time.”

“Complaining that no one responded to his birthday Evite, was he?”

Traven nods to someone.

“I was taking his confession.”

“You’re back in the priest game?”

“I don’t think excommunication counts for a lot down here,” he says.

That actually makes me smile.

“Did you do the other thing?”

A bug-headed Hellion in a sombrero and dirty serape glowers at me. I smile like a dummy and keep walking.

“You want to know if I ate his sins,” Traven says.

“Did you?”

“Of course. It’s always been part of what I do.”

I look at him.

“Even in Hell? What does anyone care about sins down here?”

“It’s an individual thing. The Magistrate’s job is difficult.”

“Believe me, I know.”

Traven looks surprised.

“You know the Magistrate?”

I shake my head.

“I know a killer when I see one and he’s one cold Charlie Starkweather motherfucker.”

“It’s not that simple,” says Traven.

“That isn’t criticism. I’m just trying to figure out how things work down here.”

“I told you. It’s a crusade.”

“Because the Crusades worked out so well back home.”

“I’ve pointed that out, but he isn’t interested in mortal history.”

What a shock.

I look at him.

“But you sound like you believe in this guy’s half-assed jihad.”

Traven puts his hands in his pockets.

“I’ve believed what I’ve had to in order to survive. And even then, I’ve questioned his methods.”

“I’m guessing a guy travels with his own personal havoc isn’t the candy-and-flowers type.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“So, you’re raiders. How bad is it?”

“Bad. When it happens … just don’t try to stop it.”

We reach the camper and Traven opens the door.

“There it is,” I say. “I came all the way to here just to be the biker trash my mom always warned me about.”

“Death does have its fun with us,” he says. “Would you like some food?”

I lean against the side of the camper with the open desert at my back so I can keep an eye on the camp.

“Does that mean I’m not being executed?”

“Not tonight.”

“Food sounds good, but what I really want is another light.”

I take out the Maledictions.

Traven points to the pack.

“Could I have one of those, too?”

“Sure.”

I tap one out and hand it to him. He lights mine, then his.

I say, “I found them on the mountain.”

“A good omen.”

“Or bad housekeeping.”

“Let’s go inside,” he says. “You’re not a popular man around here.”

“I’m getting that impression.”

He hesitates in the doorway.

“You know, I can do it for you, too.”

“Eat my sins?”

“Yes.”

I shake my head.

“Thanks, but sometimes I think my sins are the only thing holding me together.”

“That’s not true. You have a higher calling, Mr. Pitts.”

“I’m God’s special little snowflake. You don’t have to tell me.”

I take a pull on the cigarette. Watch Daja moving smoothly through the havoc, a wolf watching over her flock.

“What’s Daja’s story?”

“Her name is Dajaskinos,” says Traven. “She’s the Magistrate’s second in command. She’s very devoted.”

“They lovers?”

“No. More like father and daughter.”

“Was the guy I fried her lover?”

“I don’t know.”

“She really hates me.”

“She’s suspicious. You didn’t come to us in the usual way. Usually, we pick up new members from volunteers among groups we encounter.”

“The ones that survive the havoc.”

“That’s usually the way it works.”

I watch Daja until she steps into a city bus blaring smoke and music. The smoke from whatever they’re cooking doesn’t smell bad.

I look at Traven.

“Am I going to have to kill Daja?”

“Please don’t,” he says, his eyes going a little wide. “And don’t talk that way around here. She is powerful and respected.”

“I was afraid of that. The worst kind of boss: a good one. Don’t worry. I’m not killing anybody. I’m just making conversation. It would put you on the Magistrate’s shit list and me back where I started.”

“Which is?”

“Dead, lost, and with only half a pack of smokes. The dictionary definition of Hell.”

“Amen to that,” Traven says. He goes into the camper and I follow him.

IN A FEW minutes, he goes out and comes back with a couple of plates heaped with Hellion meat and something that’s sort of like gluey mashed potatoes. The meat is a little gamy, but I dive in headfirst and don’t come up until I’ve finished every scrap on the plate. Traven offers me some of his dinner, but I wave a hand at him.

“I don’t want you eating my sins and I’m sure not eating yours.”

He laughs and goes back to his food.

When he’s through, we smoke and talk. I tell him more about Brigitte. Everything I can think of. Later I explain how we had to fake Candy’s death and how she’s Chihiro now. When Traven asks about my murder I tell him what little I know. Ishii. Me letting down my guard. The funny hoodoo knife he used.

“If Ishii is the lowlife you describe, where would he get a knife like that?” says Traven.

Why the hell didn’t I think of that?

I sit there like a dummy trying to come up with an answer. Did he buy it off some witch with a grudge? Maybe from the White Light Legion? There was also one of the Augur, Thomas Abbot’s bodyguards, who didn’t like me. What was his name? Maybe he could come up with a weapon like that. Then something else occurs to me.

Wormwood.

I lay it out for Traven as simply as I can.

Wormwood is like a mob-run bank if the mob was a Hellion horde and the bank was the world. They make money when the stock market goes up and when currencies collapse and a few million poor slobs starve to death. They make money on terrorist bombs, and where and when the next Ebola outbreak kills the most people. They make money on who is or isn’t damned.

And they make money on me.

Who I kill. Who I don’t. Whether I’m a good boy or bad, they make a profit. And it pisses me off. I can’t say for sure that they’re behind my murder, but I know this: someone just made a fortune off my currently decaying ass.

MY EYES HAVEN’T completely focused yet, but I can make out a silhouette in the door of Traven’s camper. It’s a man and he has a knife in his hand. I kick him with my good leg and he bounces off the camper’s roof and comes down onto me.

The guy stinks. Like a T-bone steak that’s been left out in the sun and gone maggoty. He wheezes while he tries to shove the knife through my throat. He doesn’t feel that strong, but he’s on top of me with all of his weight centered on the blade.

My eyes finally focus, but it’s too dark in the van to see who it is. This seems like as good a time as any to see how strong I am and toss the killer’s ass outside. Of course, if my aim is off, he’s just going to land on me again, and maybe get lucky with the knife and my throat.

I shouldn’t have had that Hellion wine with Traven. Between it and my murder jet lag, my reflexes are all off. There’s nothing subtle I can do from this position, so I just work on pushing the fucker off me.

I’m able to move Mac the Knife’s body without too much effort. Good news. I’m still strong. Bad news. There’s something wrong with the guy’s skin. A big piece of his left arm slides off like a snake shedding its skin and the bastard comes down hard, knocking the wind out of me. While I’m trying to catch my breath, he rears back with the knife, ready to pig-stick me.

Instead, he stays up there and just twitches. A couple of big shudders. Then he sighs and does a backward swan dive out of the camper. By now, Traven is awake.

“What’s happening? Are you all right?” he says.

Mac the Knife is gone. There’s someone else silhouetted in the door, and she’s holding a knife. I’m sure it’s Daja, but instead of attacking me, the silhouette pulls off a respirator mask and says, “Jimmy, you are such an asshole.”

I squint at her through the dark. Something about the voice …

“Cherry Moon?”

She glances around and steps into the camper. Still wrapped in the ragged fur coat, she drops onto her knees and slithers over me like a shaggy snake.

“Seeing as how we’re both dead, can we finally fuck?” she says. “Right here. In front of the preacher.”

I push her off me.

“Thanks, but I’m busy bleeding right now.”

She glances back at the stab wound in my leg.

“I’ve seen you with worse. Now get that ass in the air and call me Mommy. And don’t pretend you’re not a bottom. I knew it the first time I met you.”

She climbs back on top of me, jamming her stupid knee into my knife wound. I reach up to push her off and she slides my hands over her breasts. She’s laughing when I notice Traven’s head looming over us in the dark. He looks confused.

“Wait,” he says. “You know the oracle?”

“She’s no oracle,” I say. “She’s Cherry Moon. A lunatic from my dim, dark past.”

Cherry was part of the magic circle I was in when Mason Faim sent me Downtown. She used the hoodoo he gave her to turn herself into an underage Lolita manga fuck doll. And alive or dead, she’s been screwing with me ever since.

Traven stares at Cherry grinding away on my crotch. He looks like the most puzzled holy man since Jesus saw Judas order fajitas at the Last Supper.

“No. She is the oracle,” he says.

“Oh, all right,” says Cherry. “Everybody get their pants off. You too, choirboy.”

She pinches Traven’s cheek.

“Me love you long time.”

I finally shove her off me. Cherry slams into the wall, shaking the camper. She’s still laughing.

“If the house is rocking, don’t bother knocking!”

I sit up and check my leg wound. It’s deep, but not too wide, like the knife went straight in. It’ll heal in no time.

“Stark, what is going on here?” says Traven, then corrects himself. “Pitts.”

“Don’t bother, Father,” I say. “Cherry knows me. She’s known it was me this whole time. What I don’t get is why she didn’t give me away.”

Cherry sits up, takes her time adjusting her miniskirt and coat. I pull the camper door closed.

“ZaSu Pitts. That’s the best you could come up with?” she says. “And why the funny name at all? Every asshole in Hell is afraid of Sandman Slim. Don’t you want that? Fuck, you could probably kick the Magistrate out and take over. We could ride the havoc all over Hell. One big party till the end of time.”

Traven looks at Cherry.

“You’re not a real oracle?” he says.

Cherry rolls her eyes and shoves one of her high heels into my leg. Like all my dealings with her, it hurts.

“You have any smokes left?”

I find my coat and give her a Malediction. She sparks it with a gold lighter in the shape of a Crucifix. Cherry looks at me, then turns her eyes to Traven.

“Did prickless here tell you that he killed me?”

Traven starts to say something and I cut him off.

“I didn’t kill her. I just didn’t get to her in time to save her. Mason’s attack dog—a guy named Parker—killed her.”

“Details, details,” says Cherry. “I’m still dead and it’s still your fault.”

“I’m sorry. If you were any less annoying, I’d be even more sorry.”

She looks at Traven.

“See? He admits it’s his fault. And I just saved his worthless ass. Doesn’t he owe me one quick fuck for that, Father?”

Traven takes a breath. This madness is way above his pay grade.

“So, you’re not a real oracle? Does the Magistrate know?”

She swats away the question.

“No. I’m a real oracle. I learned the whole seeing thing from a Hellion street swami. He did it for cash back in Pandemonium, but after everything went to shit because of this one.”

She digs her heel into me again.

“The swami took off and left me high and dry. Of course, I’d already learned the tricks by then … and helped myself to enough of his toys to set myself up when some bleeding hearts gave me a ride out of the city.”

“Where did you meet the havoc?” says Traven.

“We left Hell altogether and lit out for the Tenebrae. I’d spent some time here, so I knew my way around.”

“But you didn’t count on the Magistrate showing up,” I say.

She sighs and puffs the Malediction.

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