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“I was hoping for a more tangible symbol of his support.”

“What did you want? Team jackets? He’s Death. Death doesn’t lie. He just kills you. Or the other guy. In our case, it’s going to be the other guys.”

The Magistrate sighs.

“You are right. Death is a celestial being and celestials do not lie.”

Well, that’s a goddamn whopper of a lie right there. Well done, Raziel.

“There you go. It’s settled. Everything is going to be fine.”

The Magistrate rolls up his map and heads for the door.

“Have you told Vehuel about this?”

“Not much. I only saw her for a second.”

“Come. We must confer with her and prepare for tomorrow.”

“Can I get something to eat after that? All I’ve had in a week is six stale donuts.”

“What kind were they?” says Wanuri.

“Chocolate.”

“Ooo. I love those. You could have brought some back for the rest of us.”

“I was alone out there. I could have died, you know.”

“Which doesn’t alter the fact that you ate all the donuts.”

“I promise. Next vision quest, everybody gets snacks.”

She seems satisfied, but I don’t mean a word of it. The next box of desert donuts I find, they’re all mine. I think about going to Traven’s cabin and telling him what Death said about me not being able to go home, but I don’t do it. Either he was telling the truth or he was lying. I’m calm now. I have a handle on things. Talk about it is just going to throw me off balance again and I’ve been like that for too long. It’s time to let things go and deal with it.

I’m stuck here. Just another sucker in a kingdom of suckers.

We sail for a day and a half before heading back to shore. Knowing what’s coming, I eat the whole time. No way I’m hauling a doomsday gun to who the fuck knows where on an empty stomach. I also want to avoid Johnny, so I don’t come up on deck until we’re docking.

“You’re done,” says Alice.

“For the moment.”

“Are you proud of yourself? Are you proud of packing away as much food as a blue whale?”

“Which is bigger, a blue whale or a sperm whale?”

“Blue whales are the biggest animals ever.”

“Then yes. I’m very proud.”

People who know how to use rope and tie knots use every single inch of the ships’ ropes tying lines to the double flatbed with the Light Killer. Even with all the desertions, there’s still quite a mob of people left in the havoc. Still, I’m not sure it’s enough to move Big Bertha. And I’m right at first. But then the fucking angels jump in like the helpful little elves they are and the flatbed slowly starts to move. Imagine my glee.

Luckily, unlike when we entered the river tunnel, there aren’t any big hills going out. The side of the mountain opens for us and we grunt and curse like angry plow horses, but we get the gun moving out into whatever hellhole Vehuel and company are leading us to. The Magistrate takes Traven and Cherry up front with him and some of the angels.

The good news is that there are roads here. The bad news is that they’re old and rutted. Wherever we are, it isn’t like the Tenebrae. No desert monotony. No spiked mountains. It’s more like forest land after a nuke attack. Bare, mossy skeleton-like trees and tough tangles of gray and green weeds sprouting on low rolling hills. Pretty much everything but the weeds seems dead here. I can’t be sure about the trees. They’re thick and their branches twist at strange angles. Spirals, circles, and triangles. At points, some of the branches break into so many smaller branches that they look like clusters of nerves.

We trudge onward like morons, one foot in front of the other, ropes straining on our shoulders and backs. I wonder if Samael knew about the vehicles sinking and that we’d end up like this, army ants dragging the carcass of an elephant back to our mound. Bet he did. It seems like the kind of thing he’d find hilarious. Of course he wouldn’t let me in on the joke ahead of time. Where’s the fun in that?