to get some of the weak breeze on the back of my head.
And in a blink, Miko was suddenly there on the steps, Cooper and the Warlock strung up naked and sunburned on rough-hewn mesquite crosses to either side of her. As a small mercy, their limbs had been tied, not nailed, to the twisted branches. Their heads hung forward, insensible, as their chests shuddered to pull in shallow breaths.
The devil kitten in my saddlebag was purring loudly.
You ready for this? I asked Pal.
“Ready for a slow, bloody, excruciating death followed by eternal damnation? Of course. What fun.”
Ignoring his sarcasm, I drew my pistol-grip Mossberg shotgun and racked a cartridge into the chamber.
“Give ’em back, Miko!” My voice was tight, shaky, a mouse’s outraged squeak at a lion.
She smiled at me, and all at once her beauty and power hit me like a velvet sledgehammer. If I’d been standing I would have fallen to my knees. I hoped I wasn’t getting wet; Pal would know and it would be a sprinkle of embarrassment on top of the disaster sundae I’d brought to our table.
“You know what I want,” she whispered, her voice floating easily over the distance between us. “Give yourself to me, and your men shall go free.”
A tiny part of me—the part that was exhausted, weary of fighting, weary of running—wondered if giving my body and soul to her would really be such a bad thing. It was the same part that had entertained the shadow’s vision of my future with it. I kicked that part of myself in the ass and chased it from my mind.
I swung my leg over Pal’s vertebral crest and slid down to the pavement. Stick close behind me. I won’t last long against her, and I don’t want the kitten out of range.
“Consider me your glue,” Pal replied.
“What do you want me for?” I slowly approached Miko, the shotgun still gripped in my hand. It would be completely useless against her, but I didn’t want her to know I knew that.
She laughed. “I always knew you would make a far better partner than the shadow, and you proved that beyond any doubt yesterday. Losing my puppets is … inconvenient, but I have more than enough to break down the last resistance. It’s time to move on from here.”
“What do you need a partner for?” I was still moving toward her; another twenty steps and I’d be able to light her up even if I couldn’t get my hand to stop shaking. “I mean, not that I’m not flattered and stuff, but it seems like you do okay on your own.”
Another laugh. “Oh, I do, but running a paradise takes a certain amount of focus and time, and it’s nice to have someone who can be relied upon for both work and recreation.”
I never thought the word “recreation” could sound quite as salacious as she made it sound.
“Paradise?” I was genuinely puzzled. She didn’t sound as though she was speaking with irony or sarcasm. “What paradise?”
“In here.” She pointed at her heart. “I am an entirely benevolent goddess to those who submit their souls to me. They receive the gift of living the afterlife of their dreams. If I have to take a soul by force, well … that soul gets to watch everyone else having a good time.”
“That sounds real nice.” I was in range. I dropped the shotgun and before it had hit the pavement I’d yanked off my glove and let loose with a blast of incendiary ectoplasm—
—which fizzled into nothing as she made the smallest of gestures with her left hand.
And then she grabbed my claw with her right, sending me down to my knees on the marble steps, flooding my body with pain.
“Now, that wasn’t very nice,” she said softly. “Or very smart. Did you seriously think I’d still be vulnerable to something as common as fire? That curse hasn’t bound me since I won my soul.”
Miko shook her head at me. “A shame you weren’t just a little more intelligent. I guess it’s true … good help is hard to find.”
She reached down to touch my face with her left hand, and I knew that she meant to take my soul, and I couldn’t speak or move and in my panic I did the only thing I could think to do and retreated into my hellement.
I found myself standing in the bedroom, the floor still sticky with the remains of the jelly.
I’m about to die, I thought.