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“Absolutely.”

“Then what do you say to the ultimate goal of the original Wormwood? Do you judge their betrayal of the human race less harshly?”

I say, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Now he laughs for real.

“You’re in a war and you don’t even know your enemy’s motives and goals. Perhaps you should go back to your old ways, slim one. You were a better assassin than a soldier.”

“What does ‘betrayal of the human race’ mean?” says Candy. I can hear her worry for Alessa in every syllable.

Hijruun and his skulls whoop.

“The faction, as you call them, longs to serve a God who has no use for them. But the earlier, older Wormwood still lives only to serve itself. They’ve made a compact with God’s rebel angels to steal every mortal soul that is or has ever been to prevent them from entering Heaven. This will end the great war and things in the afterlife will regain their balance. As a half-human, you must be so proud.”

He’s laughing harder than ever now. It’s distracting. I can’t think things through.

“That doesn’t make sense. Even Wormwood members die. What’s going to happen to their souls when they go?”

That cracks him up even more.

“Nothing, because they won’t die. Part of their bargain with the rebels is a Heavenly elixir. It will render them as immortal as the angels themselves. This will make them kings of their world and lords of every human soul unto the end of time. It’s enough to make one laugh.”

And he does just that.

I look at Candy. We both know it, but she’s polite enough not to say it. This is who I’ve been working for. People who are going to own every human in existence. Wormwood can already buy and sell damnation. What will happen when they can sell immortality too? The kind of people who can afford that are exactly the kind who shouldn’t get near it. And I’ve been their stooge from the second I got back, paving the way for them to wipe out the faction and buy eternity for themselves and their friends. Now I am going to kill all of them. And I deserve to die along with them.

“Stark warned you,” says Candy. “Isn’t that worth something?”

“Of course,” laughs Hijruun. “My kind pays our debts. Ask what you will.”

“He’s dying. Can you do anything to stop it?”

The big bag of bones looks me over. After a while he says, “You wish to live forever?” Hijruun giggles.

“No. Just my normal time.”

The cackler thinks, the skulls along his body whispering and laughing at something we can’t hear and probably wouldn’t understand if we could.

“There might be a way. A potion. Something very old. I have the makings in the tower. Come,” he snickers, then stops and looks at me.

“Will you encounter either Wormwood again, do you think?” laughs Hijruun.

“I’m sure of it.”

Hijruun touches one of the skulls on his side and it pops open, revealing something gleaming inside.

“Please give this to them,” he snickers.

It’s a small clear crystal, about the size of my thumb.

“What is it?”

“A surprise,” Hijruun howls. “Now come. Let us see about your potion.”

We barely get twenty feet.

They come out of the trees, down the bone trail, and through the eyeball thicket. All in balaclavas and heavily armed. When they’re rushing us like that, I can’t tell how many of them there are, or if they’re Wormwood or the faction.