The car isn’t a car anymore. It’s a big metal cigarette butt a giant stubbed out in a six-lane concrete ashtray. I pull my leg off the bumper and let it drop to the ground. I was expecting a lot of blood, but there isn’t any. I check my arms. No bones sticking out. I feel for the knee I left behind in the car. It’s on my leg right where it should be. My clothes aren’t even ripped. The plastic rabbit is laying in the grit by my head. I pick it up and wobble to my feet. Mustang Sally was right. I went through the Dahlia and came out me again. But where am I?

I’m still at the crossroads. Sort of. This isn’t the underpass from last night. This one is an underpass and nothing else. There isn’t any freeway on either side of it, just cracked hardpan in both directions. The concrete support and the car are half buried in sand, like they’ve been there a hundred years. The sun is so bright out in the open that I can’t see anything. The only thing I’m sure of is that this isn’t L.A. and it sure as hell isn’t Hell.

I go out the far side of the underpass into the light. I have to close my eyes until my eyes adjust to the glare. When I can see, there’s nothing to see, just sand and more sand. Big rippling dunes curving down to little dunes. They go on forever. There’s a miserable path of compacted dirt leading between the sand hills. A few parched and poisonous-looking weeds stick up along the sides of the path. I go back through the underpass and check the other side. It’s the same. I’m in the middle of a goddamn desert. And this side doesn’t even have a little path, so I head back out the other.

When I’m out I grab hold of the rusted guardrail and pull myself onto the Twilight Zone slice of freeway. A road sign is suspended across all eight lanes. One of the support legs has fallen, but it’s still readable. Big white letters studded with reflectors on a green background. Typical California freeway stuff. The sign reads:

WELCOME TO NOD

POPULATION 0

A second smaller sign points to where an exit might have been a million years ago. It reads:

EDEN 10 MILES WEST

The arrow at the bottom points in the same direction as the dirt path. I climb down and start walking.

IT’S AS HOT as a dragon’s balls. I have my coat off and thrown over my shoulder before I’ve gone fifty yards. I don’t do outdoors. I’ll take the arena any day over this Miami damnation tanning contest.

Bava showing up and sticking her bony fingers in my skull really threw me at the end. If something has gone wrong and I’m stuck in an afterlife cow town somewhere between Nowhere and Fuck All it could be my fault.

Alice was a mole feeding the Sub Rosa intel about my life and me? I don’t buy it. That’s exactly the kind of psyops party trick Mason would come up with. Then he’d get Aelita to tell Bava because she’s security and security believes anything a superior or a halo tells them.

I don’t believe it, but the angel won’t shut up about it. I think the Black Dahlia might have shaken something loose in its head. I’m the unreasonable one in this Laurel and Hardy act, but it’s jabbering away in a frantic stream of What if? Could it be? And that explains everything.

Maybe the angel can’t deal with being on this side of death or whatever this is. Have I blown its tiny feathered brain? This treasure hunt was going to be hard enough with Little Mary Sunshine whispering to me, but it’s going to be a whole lot worse if I end up with a crazy person trying to claw his way out of my skull.

The simple truth of it is that Alice couldn’t be a mole. I would have felt it if she was Sub Rosa. Alice is the only person I never bullshitted or lied to. She’s the only person I ever really trusted. That means if she was what Bava says and I missed it, everything I’ve ever believed about my life or myself is wrong.

My human father, the one stuck with the lousy job of raising me after a certain angel called Kinski knocked up my mom, hated me. He even took a shot at me once when we were deer hunting. So much for the father-son three-leg race at the church picnic.

My mother loved me, but was lost at sea most of the time when I was growing up. The drinking and pills didn’t help. I don’t remember a single moment when she didn’t seem lonely. She jumped at every sound in the yard or at the door like she was expecting someone who was never there.

There’s Vidocq, who’s been more of a fatherend of a f to me than my civilian father or Kinski. He’s the only other person I trust as much as Alice. Trusted.

I don’t see how Bava’s bullshit could be true, but Alice did hold out on me at least once. One night she told me that she was rich and that she came from heavy money. She never said much else about her family, but I always took that to mean she was as far from hers as I was from mine. Was she about to confess that all that filthy lucre came from Daddy’s late-night infomercial magic-wand business or youth potions from Elizabeth Báthory’s blood?

Goddammit. How could I let Bava get to me like this? Was she throwing some hoodoo at me when we talked? No. I would have felt it, and if I didn’t, the angel in my head would. It has to be a mind game and I’m ashamed that it’s worked. Or maybe the bitch was telling me the truth.

And where in the goddamn middle of for fuck’s sake am I? Is Mustang Sally in on Mason’s cosmic scam? If there even is a scam.

Calm down. Deep breaths. Go to your happy place. Oh, wait. I don’t have one. Slow down and think, but thinking is supposed to be the angel’s job. Nice time to stop taking your pills, Saint Acid Test.

Fuck me, it’s hot here.

There isn’t even a decent enough shadow so I can slink into the Room and go home.

Maybe I’ll get lucky and there will be a postcard stand somewhere. “Dear Everyone. Hope you don’t mind being doomed. Xoxo Stark.”

The road disappears ahead. A dune has blown across it like the wall of a sand fortress. If the desert has eaten the rest of the road, things are about to get really interesting.

The dune is soft and loose. I can’t walk. I have to crawl up it. It’s slow and hot with the coat draped over my shoulder. I move one hand. One foot. The other hand. The other foot. If this is a joke and Sisyphus is waiting at the top to hand me his boulder, he can kiss my ass.

Halfway up and I’m getting very pissed off. The angel is freaking out and the clock is ticking. Even if Mason is lying about having Alice and just wants me chasing my tail all over Hell, I need to know. It means that he’s ready to make his move on Heaven.

If I ever get out of here, I’m going to find whichever angel invented sand and make it eat this fucking desert while getting a Tabasco enema.

I reach up and get a handful of air. I’m at the top of the dune. I was right. The road is gone. But it doesn’t matter.

Holy shit.

I think I just found the Garden of Eden. There’s probably a soda machine and I left all my cash in L.A.

I stumble down the side of the he side ofmonster dune toward the acres of cool green grass and sparkling waterfalls.

The gates in front are dazzling in the desert sun. I don’t know what they’re made of, but they shine brighter than anything I’ve ever seen on earth, but the reflection doesn’t hurt my eyes. It’s like the gates have an internal glow that evens out the sun. Even the chains holding them shut are glowing.

There’s a lone angel to one side of the gate. He’s like one of those Buckingham Palace guards. He stands like an idiot statue staring straight ahead at attention, like a filthy, sweating madman didn’t just stumble in off the Mojave. I wonder how long he’s been there. I put my coat back on to cover up some of the dirt and walk over to him.

“My GPS is out, but the AAA guide said there was a Denny’s around here. Is this it?”

The angel doesn’t move. I get in front of him and stick my face right into his. Close enough that our noses touch. Nothing. If I wasn’t trying to stop the destruction of the universe, I could waste some time giving this guy a hotfoot or starting a tickle contest, but duty and getting out of this sun calls.

Mom always told me that God helps those who help themselves, so I head for the gates. I grab hold of the chains holding them closed and take out the black blade. Before I can swing it, the angel turns into a speeding blur and slams his shoulder into me like a supersonic linebacker. I go flying back to the dune.

He looks a little surprised when I get to my feet, but manages to stay in character, spreading his wings and pointing at me in that superior my-shit-smells-like-blueberry-muffins way angels have. His armor glows with the same light as the gates. His voice is low, louder than the cop bullhorn, and echoing. I wonder if heaven issues every angel its own reverb unit.

“Halt. Your kind may not enter the Malchut of Atzilut.”

I walk back to him, brushing the sand off my coat.

“Did I get turned around? The sign said this was the way to Epcot.”

The angel drops his hands to his side. He’s a head taller than me with Josef’s chiseled übermensch cheekbones, only his hair is jet black.

“If you mean the road to Gan Eden, then yes. But you are not permitted to enter the place that God gave to man and was lost to him. This is a holy place and only the righteous shall pass through the gate.”

I get out a Malediction and light up.

“Here’s the situation. I was dead a few minutes ago and woke up a little way over those dunes. That tells me that this is where I’m supposed to be. I’m not looking to hang around and track dust all over your daffodils. All I want to know is if there’s a freight elevator or a crawl space or something? I’m trying to get to Hell.ȁ wa Hell.&D;

He gives me his stern face, all steely eyes and smoldering passion. He could get a job as a romance-novel cover model.

“Once, only Heaven was here, but the sin of man befouled it.”

“So I can get to Hell through there?”

“Yes. The serpent brought the seeds of Hell into this place, man tended it, and here it stays like a festering wound.”

“Would you mind pointing out the scar tissue? I need to get going.”

“What matter is Eden to you? No mortal man or woman may enter.”

“How many mortal men do you get around here? Do you rent the place out for pool parties during spring break?”

The angel doesn’t say anything and his smoldering act is starting to get old. I blow smoke in his face.

“Listen up, Hawkman, I’m going in there even if I have to pluck off all your feathers and stuff you like a teddy bear.”

The angel waves the smoke away. He stretches and rubs the back of his neck. His voice rises to a normal octave and doesn’t echo anymore.

“Listen, man. It’s the end of my shift. I’m really tired and the sun’s giving me a migraine. I can’t let you in, but I don’t want to get into a whole thing about it with you. Can you just hang around and work this out with my replacement?”

“I’m in kind of a hurry.”

“He’ll be here tonight. Tomorrow at the latest.”

“I really can’t wait.”

He sighs.

“Yeah. I figured.”

He manifests his Gladius, his angelic sword of fire, and takes a swing at my head. The attack is slow. Completely for show. Why shouldn’t it be? He’s an angel and I’m just a lost spirit who wandered in from nowhere. I manifest my own Gladius, block his blow, and cut a nice diagonal slice through his chest plate. He falls back, eyes wide.

April Fool, motherfucker.

His Gladius is on the ground, but I’m mad. He made me drop one of my last cigarettes. I move in fast and get my sword under his chin.

“What’s your name?”

“Rizoel./diC;Rizoe201D;

“Well, Rizoel, you know that I could kill you entirely here and now, right? I know fallen angels go to Tartarus when they die, but I’m not clear on what happens to nice angels. Given my natural inclinations, I’d like to slice and dice you just to see where you end up. Lucky for you there’s a little angel that lives in my head and I know he won’t shut up about it if I turn you into chum. So to sum up, this is your lucky day. Understand?”

Rizoel gives me a mininod, making sure not to let the Gladius touch his chin.

“Here’s the deal. You can walk away but you have to do something for me. What do you think? You ready to come on down off your high-and-mighty for a second and make a deal?”

“I don’t seem to have a choice.”

“Sure you do. But one of them isn’t pretty.”

The angel nods.

“All right.”

I let my Gladius go out. The angel tries to stand, but he’s favoring the side where I slashed him. I take his other arm and help him up.

“You’re him, aren’t you?” he says. “The nephilim. The monster who kills monsters.”

“I’ll give you an autograph, but if it shows up on eBay, I’m going to be mad.”

“You are an Abomination and will not pass through these holy gates.”

I should have seen that coming. Never trust an angel.

We both fire up our Gladiuses and go at each other. Even hurt, the angel is inhumanly fast and strong, but so am I. He’s not going to fall for the same trick twice, so I stay in close to him. He can’t get a good swing at me, and with his injured arm he can’t push me back enough to put me in dissecting range. But he figures out what I’m doing and kicks my leg. When I stumble he gets an overhead shot at my back. I see it coming and turn my shoulders so he only gets a piece of me. Still, the blow burns like nothing I’ve ever felt before. It feels a lot like a magic flaming sword.

I snap my head up under his chin and knock him back. I swing at his shoulder, but the prick has been playing possum. He grabs my throat with what I thought was his injured arm, raises his sword with the other, and brings it down at my head. I kick out my feet and fall backward, pulling him down with me. As we fall I swing my sword up between us. The angel lands on top of me and my Gladius goes out.