Trent thought about what Ramón had told him, about being a Bringer of Doom. He had used his dead luck on mortals, and on cherubim, and he guessed that, given enough concentration, it might work on a grigorim as well. He closed his eyes.
The world behind his eyelids swirled with black and gray. Ash drifted from a starless sky, falling on an endless, dark horizon, and in that darkness he could still see the Render, its spider-like form advancing on him, front legs twitching, birthing black smoke as it came on. With a herculean effort of will, Trent pulled his mind away from that place and to a point somewhere between that world and this, and there he saw the endless varieties of luck and fate and chance, dancing like video captures in his mind’s eye, every possible permutation a choice, every potential moment an option. With a bloodcurdling yell, he shoved the universe and felt the possibilities collapse, favoring one.
He opened his eyes in time to hear the metallic clang as the bindings around his wrists snapped free. His head lurched forward as he fell. The Render leapt from its perch ahead of them and hurtled through the air toward Trent and Zamagiel. Trent’s forehead snapped forward, catching the old man square in the back of the skull. The impact send Zamagiel tumbling to the ground in an instant, and the Render dove over him and toward Trent, who fell to the ground, just far enough to avoid the creature’s piercing spikes.
The Render slammed into the metal pole, lost its balance, and tumbled over the platform’s safety railing and onto the sloping black side of the Luxor pyramid. The shadow creature’s bladelike appendages dug into the building’s metal panels, leaving ragged slices as it slid a few feet down and then stopped and hung there. Lightning crashed through the sky, bathing everything in bright white for a moment, and the creature let out a horrible shriek and slipped further, but still managed to hold on. After a moment, it began, slowly, to claw its way back up the pyramid wall.
Trent stood, battered and broken, over the corpse-like frame of the old Italian man. “Give me the knife!” he yelled, holding out his trembling hand.
But before Zamagiel could even look up at him, the angelic guards raised and trained their rifles on Trent. “Stand down!” one of them yelled.
“Fuck off!” said Trent, irritated.
“Stand down!” replied the cherubim again. “You must let the Render take you. It has been written.”
“Fuck your Prophecy!” But for a moment, Trent did consider the angel’s words. In the constant shrieks of the Render, he could again hear Susan’s voice, louder now, more obvious, screaming his name over and over. If he let it take him, would he go to the Realms of Shadow, to Abaddon? Would he see her again? He looked around, and in the distance below the Luxor, he could see the blinking red and blue of police cars and he thought about all of the people down there; living people, people with jobs and families and children. The children. Celia. Susan would never forgive him for letting Celia die. He turned to look directly at the cherubim who had spoken to him.
“You stand down!” he commanded, pointing an accusatory finger. “Do the job God gave you and let us make our own choices, angel!”
The four guards glanced at each other nervously.
Trent opened his mouth to say more, but the Render’s terrible, high-pitched hum silenced him. He turned to see it cresting the safety railing. In an instant, it slipped into a nearby shadow cast upon the metal platform by the Luxor beam.
Trent roared and sprinted after it. When he reached the place where it had gone, he thrust his hand into the shadow and felt the burning sensation in his chest and then, to his surprise, his hand passed into the black, beyond the metal-grate floor. He felt unending cold and the buzzing, painful sensation of shadow-stuff between his fingers. He yanked as hard as he could, and the Render came billowing up from within the shadow. As it did, Trent thrust his other hand into its core and lifted it aloft.
The Render struggled awkwardly, throwing shadowy smoke like ink into the dark, howling night. It screeched, and the bulk of its sound was Susan’s voice, screaming Trent’s name.
Trent hobbled backwards, his balance compromised by the creature’s writhing motions. The muscles in his arms strained, aching, as he moved towards the light beam. His heart banged against the inside of his ribcage as he tried to ignore the voice emanating from the Render’s shrieks.
“Die!” he yelled, competing against the noise of the monster. “Die, goddamn you!”
He took a lurching step forward and thrust the Render down upon the face of the lamp that projected the Luxor’s iconic beam into the sky. For the first time in years, the pyramid’s beam went dark. Even light curling around the edges of the creature pulled unnaturally toward it, sucking into the black, smoke-like shape, and its howling grew more intense than ever before, a crescendo of howling voices that burned into Trent’s eardrums, with Susan’s voice at the helm, screaming his name.
“Give me the dagger!” he bellowed, using one hand to gesture towards Zamagiel, who still lay on the ground, stunned and confused. The light was burning the Render with unmatched ferocity, but Trent knew that he could not hold it for long. Already, his arm was giving out and he could feel the thing slipping from his grasp. If it came free, it would leap into the shadows again and regain its strength, and he knew he did not have the energy to fight it any longer. He had to end it now, had to use the dagger to pin it to the lamp face and let it burn away.
“No!” screamed Zamagiel, from his place on the ground. “Let him die! He has ruined us, taken the Garden from us!”
“I will not kill another!” screamed a slightly different voice from the same lips, and Trent realized in an instant that it was the voice of the old man, Salvatore, arguing with the rider that controlled his body.
“You will do God’s will! You have always done His will!”
“I will not kill again!” screamed Salvatore, his voice gaining strength over the fallen angel’s. He reached beneath him and retrieved the silvery dagger and held it aloft, but his arm strained and trembled.
“You are weak, little man. Let go! Let him die as we will. The Prince has betrayed us all!”
“You have betrayed me,” replied Salvatore’s voice.
The fallen angel spoke then, his voice coming out lower and meaner, gravelly and dark, “You have betrayed everyone you ever loved, Salvatore Cortina. You killed your own wife, your own child. You have not the strength to resist this.”
Trent could feel the Render tearing itself from his grasp and he had to retract his outstretched hand in order to hold the thing with both hands, lest it pull itself free. His head still turned, though, he watched as the fallen angel struggled with the man he had usurped from his own body. At the mention of his wife and child, Salvatore’s face went dead, impassive, no longer empowered by the fury and anger that it had held before. Trent knew that the old Italian had lost, and soon, his own strength would give out and the Render would burst free and end them all.
Salvatore shook his raised arm one last time, the dagger gleaming in the light of a sudden flash of lightning overhead. The cherubim raised their rifles and pointed them at the fallen grigorim. Trent heard the metal clicks as they pulled back the triggers. He knew that, even now, the cherubim were following the rules. They could not shoot Zamagiel, for he was one of them, an angel, albeit fallen. But if Salvatore–the mortal–won out...
Salvatore’s deadened expression drooped even further. “I killed my wife and child,” he said, quietly, resigned to the sudden and irrevocable memory. His head lowered and his arm fell and the dagger slipped from his grasp. It clattered to the metal platform.
The cherubim visibly relaxed, and lowered their guns. Crisis averted. The Render would take Trent and the Prophecy would come to pass.
Trent’s heart sank as he pleaded with the old man, but Salvatore would not look up. The Render squirmed more forcefully in his grip, and he knew he had only seconds left before it came free. All of the muscles in his body were shutting down, overwhelmed by pain and stress and blood loss. He stare
d at the old man, defeated.
And then, Salvatore did look up. “I killed my wife and child,” he mouthed, silently. “And for that, I ask forgiveness.” He lifted one hand a few inches from the floor and, with a flick of his wrist, a gust of wind poured down from the sky above and caught the dagger and flipped it, end over end, towards Trent and the Render. It landed, wavering, point down in a square hole in the metal grate.
In a flash, Trent used his last bit of strength to reach out and grab the knife. Spinning it in his hand, he brought it forward in a ragged motion and jabbed it viciously into the shadow-flesh of the Render beneath his grip. Instead of piercing the glass of the lamp, as Trent had expected, the blade buried itself to the hilt in the black mass of the creature.
The Render’s scream overpowered even the cacophony of the blizzard around them. Its unearthly wail, fronted by Susan’s tortured, dulcet tones, shook even the platform they stood upon. The cherubim, for a moment, were stunned. Salvatore looked up, bloodless eyes wide with terror. Trent watched, head lowered, inured somehow to the horrors of the thing, as its shadow-stuff peeled off, in long strips first that glowed orange at the edges as though heated by rays of the Luxor beam. Then, the strips became irregular fragments, then dusty particles of ashen black that leapt into the air and were pulled apart by the swirling winds, and as the Render came apart, so did its howl. The voices dropped out, one-by-one, then en masse, and the scream became a hum and then a whisper, and the last thing that Trent heard was his name.
He turned on the stunned cherubim guards, rifles raising now, confused as to whom they should fire upon. Had Salvatore won out? Was the Prophecy broken? They seemed to suddenly arrive at the same conclusion and turned their guns on Trent.
Trent did not slow. He hobbled towards Salvatore’s fallen body, paying no heed to the angels’ guns. Bullets sprayed forth, punctuated by explosive pops and the clicking sounds of the guns re-chambering over and over. Trent’s gut burned. The bullets zipped past him in all directions, ricocheting off the metal platform floor and railings and lightning rods. Four fleshy thwacks, then grunts, followed by blood that sprayed onto Trent on all sides as he reached down to help Salvatore to his feet. Four guns clattered to the metal catwalk.
“It’s over,” said Trent, whispering into Salvatore’s ear as he helped the old man stand. “It’s over.” He looked into Salvatore’s eyes and saw an immense sea of pain dancing in the light of Luxor beam behind them. But he saw happiness there, too. A sad, contemplative sort of joy. And already the storm above them had begun to subside.
“I remember now,” croaked Salvatore Cortina. “I should have known. It was her favorite spice.”
Trent looked at him, confused by the delirious ramblings.
“Her recipe. I remember...” A genuine smile burst across the old man’s face. “Always an extra pinch of–” But he never finished the sentence. His eyes went wide and his mouth formed a surprised ‘O’ but no further sound came out. The old man’s ruined body convulsed. Blood spewed from his lips.
Trent jumped back, surprised and alarmed, and saw what had happened. A glistening spear of ice now protruded from the front of Salvatore’s chest, already dripping, melting, the ice water running to the ground in red-stained rivulets.
Salvatore locked gaze with Trent, eyes still wide with surprise and panic. Blood dribbled from the corners of his mouth, and then the Italian fell. Behind him, at the far side of the maintenance platform, Trent saw Celia, standing firm, her face solemn, arm extended.
29
WHEN CELIA REACHED HIM, TRENT noticed for the first time that she was wearing his cowboy hat. He reached up with an aching arm and felt his own hair and thought it strange that he had not noticed the hat missing. He had always assumed it to be the source of his luck at the poker table. He thought now about how it had once belonged to the demon, Ramón, and mused that, indirectly, it had been.
Trent looked down at Salvatore’s dead body. His emotions roiled and collided with one another and a part of him insisted on burying the thought of what Celia had just done. The teenager scared him, more even than the Render. He imagined for a moment that her future could not possibly hold much beyond nightmares.
He pointed at the hat. “Where’d you get that?” he asked, forcing a weak smile.
“Found it in the stairwell.”
He looked down at Salvatore again and thought about another of Ramón’s tips. “We’ve gotta burn the body,” he said, almost whispering due to the pain that had begun to flood him as the adrenaline wore off.
Celia nodded, and then helped him to his feet. With Salvatore’s body fully dead, the angel was trapped and could no longer control the storm. The winds were already dying down, the temperature rising fast. Trent could feel the tendrils of arctic air slipping away from him, letting warmth move back into his muscles. His legs and arms still felt wooden, but he managed to lift the old man’s body, with Celia’s help. The returning warmth had set off painful tingling throughout his flesh, and he grimaced as he walked. Celia helped to steady his steps.
Together, they made their way down the access stairs and back into the hotel, Salvatore’s bloody form slumped over Trent’s equally bloody shoulder. Even as he limped along with the corpse, Trent could feel Zamagiel’s will probing and pushing, trying to find some purchase inside Trent’s body, trying to find a way into Trent’s soul.
“I don’t have a soul”, Trent said aloud. “You’re out of luck, asshole.”
As they moved through the building, they could hear children crying and people yelling and saw a few blond angels run past them as they, too, headed for the secret exit in the basement. The cherubim only shot Trent nasty glares as they went past. Outside, Trent could tell that the howling storm winds were beginning to abate.
They reached the bottom of the stairwell and pushed through the door that led into the basement. Behind the door stood a surprised man, a mortal, standing only inches from Trent’s face. He had a ski mask on and a rifle slung over one shoulder. He was clearly confused, now abandoned by his angelic overseers. He scrambled to right his gun and aim, but before he could do anything useful, Celia kicked him square in the crotch. The kick sent the guy into a crumpled heap, where he lay clutching himself and moaning pitifully.
Trent looked over at the teenage girl and raised an eyebrow. She smiled back at him.
They wandered the basement for a few minutes until they found a large, concrete-floored, equipment storage room. Inside there were a number of facility golf carts, some wheeled plastic serving carts, metal folding chairs, broken tables, and other assorted items. At the far end of the room were a series of gas-powered backup generators, now chugging along noisily. Beside them was a metal shelf housing a series of red plastic gasoline containers.
Trent stumbled over, grabbed a wheeled cart, and loaded it with Salvatore’s body and an assortment of gas containers. Then he motioned to Celia and the two of them pushed the cart down the long basement hallway, past the now-empty security room, and through the nondescript, unguarded door at the end, which opened into the tunnels.
Once in the tunnels, with the door closed behind them, Trent pushed Salvatore’s body onto the concrete and then doused it with the gasoline.
He sat down on the end of the rolling cart and faced the soaked corpse. Celia stood beside him.
“Well, don’t know what to say, really,” he intoned, his voice echoing through the concrete tunnel.
Trent looked down and saw the remains of a cigarette lying in the dust on the floor. He picked it up, lit it with the silver Zippo lighter from his pocket, and took a long drag. The warmth from the fire had sent his body into aching convulsions. His mind and vision swam.
“You made this a really shitty day for me, angel,” he said finally. “But Salvatore didn’t deserve this. Anyway, I’m not much good at eulogies, and I didn’t really even know you. But I guess I feel bad. You were a father once. A husband, I guess.” Trent took a deep breath to clear his thoughts. His head thro
bbed. He could not stop thinking of Susan. He thought about Zamagiel’s taunts. Trent had been a husband once. He still was. “That thing really took you for a ride, didn’t it, Sal? Sorry, I–”
Trent stopped talking and took the cigarette out of his mouth. He stared at the glowing tip as it burned away, ashes dropping to the floor. He could feel tears coming on and hated the idea that he might be crying over his own misfortune while a man’s body lay dead before him.
“Shit,” he said, and tossed the cigarette onto the corpse. “Rest in peace, old man.”
Trent and Celia sat in the darkness of the tunnel for a few minutes, watching the flames dancing on the concrete walls as they consumed Salvatore’s body. At one point, Trent believed he heard Zamagiel’s voice scream out his name in anger, but he pinned it on his imagination or the fast-wavering delirium brought on by the frostbite.
When the body had come to a pretty solid burn, they got up to leave. Trent stood, looked at Celia, took two steps, and then collapsed. His hand and leg and head all throbbed. It felt like a bubble had burst inside his brain.
I wish Susan were here, he thought.
There was a sudden wash of pain and then nothing but shadow.
30
TRENT’S CONSCIOUSNESS WAVERED IN AND out as the ambulance bounced along the snow-crusted streets. His pain-riddled dreams smashed hard into his subconscious–terrifying, monstrous, filled with blood. When his eyes finally blinked open, he realized that he was not alone. To his right sat Celia, concern painted across her face. To his left sat Snake, who looked as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. In fact, he looked almost bored. The sound of the ambulance radio echoed through the cab:
“...disappeared as quickly as it arrived. The freak weather, which is being called the Great Vegas Blizzard, is responsible for two hundred reported deaths, including a number of police officers, as well as numerous injuries and property damage. That damage has yet to be assessed. The Mayor’s office has issued a statement indicating that casino losses alone may be enormous, especially the Luxor, where opportunistic criminals took a number of hostages and caused significant damage to the gaming floor. For more on that, we’ll be talking with reporter Martin Jones, in just a few minutes. But first, the dramatic conclusion to the serial kidnapping case. The body of the kidnapper was found, burned, in tunnels beneath the Luxor, apparently connected somehow to the criminals...”
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