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"What do you want?"

"Knohat I did for Christ to the guy ned the monster"

"You want money? Take it It was a lousy day and I’ve already deposited all the Christmas money, so you’re shit out of luck there"

Kasabian has been a drama queen fro him with a Vincent Price moment

"I don’t want your ht to give hiets exactly the reaction I was hoping for His mouth opens, but he doesn’t make a sound One of his hands co a silent scream He steps back froive h and low, but this is fun This is an e-ticket roller coaster

"Shut your mouth, Kas You look like one of those blow-up sheep in the back of porn zines" I stop about ten feet froet o Da"

His hands are do and he’s leaning on the counter like a drunk trying to decide whether to fall on his face or his back I thuun

"It’s okay I know you don’t have anything forfor you, Kas Climb up on Santa’s lap and I’ll show you"

I take a baby step closer to the counter and Kasabian takes one back Then he does the funniest thing He raises his hands and there’s a gun there-a 45-caliber Colt Peaceives s in the chest and belly, co black The stun gun falls to the floor and I follow it down I can feeling ans see Death is settling over me, soft and warm, like a down comforter fresh from the dryer My heart stops

SOMETHING FUNNY HAPPENED to ot hard to kill When I first arrived there, I was the first and only living human to ever set foot in Hell I was a sideshow freak Pay a dollar and see Ji reed poodle, they thought it ht in the arena and they ine the Super Bowl every week or two

Naturally, the location being Hell and the setting being an arena, there was a lot of cheating going on Hellions don’t like losing bets any ht, a bribed trainer or attendant would shoith a sneaky little gift They slipped s They whispered fiendish spells into h it didn’t make me Superman I was knifed and speared I was burned I was al that bled fire and screauished voices of all the souls it had devoured My ribs and skull were beaten to Silly Putty

But I didn’t die

I don’t know if it was the spells, the drugs, the Aqua Regia, or just clean living, but I was changing Every tier That meant that the next attack had to be harder, faster, even more ferocious than the one before After a while, I actually looked forward to the beat-downs Each one changed e meant that I was immune from a similar attack next time By the end, I was a flesh-and-bone, ar-class, old-school Hellions and nouveau celebutante fiends decided it was ti and by then I was doingin the arena I was freelance - killing Hellions out of the arena, and that h by forces far darker than your run-of-the-mill tail-and-pitchfork type

On the other hand, I’d never been shot before

"Stark?" says Kasabian frohs quietly, nervously "Mason is going to shit hi the 45’s still-war it into the floor Kasabian’s fat finger is still looped in the trigger guard, so he coht hand flickers to my boot and tears free the black bone knife I twistdown the knife in a smooth arc Kasabian’s head tumbles to the floor and rolls away like a pumpkin His body flops to the floor

From beneath the Disney new-releases rack, Kasabian’s head begins to wail

"Oh God! Oh Jesus, fuck! I’ Don, I beca and this is pri shakily torab his leg by the ankle with my free hand In a situation like this, when you want to clear away the evidence, you want to drag the body You ht think it’s faster to toss it over your shoulder in a fire with two hundred pounds of Jell-O It wiggles, shifts, and refuses to stay still Dragging is slower, but

I carry Kasabian upstairs, his head still screa behind us

The second floor is one big rooon one wall, but sparsely furnished There’s a bed, a couple of desk chairs, and a table piled high with tape decks, DVD burners, and a big color printer-afactory I drop the body by the door and set his head on the worktable The gun I toss on the bed Kasabian is still shrieking like a banshee, which is pretty good for a guy with no lungs

I grab a chair and drop down in front of hiarettes out of Brad Pitt’s now-bloody jacket, I light one up and blow smoke in Kasabian’s face

"Smell that? Thatand looks at me Then he spots his body on the floor and starts caterwauling again I take a slow drag and blow an extra-long cancer cloud right in his face

He gets quiet and finally seems to focus on me

"Stark? You’re dead"

"Tell me, Kas, how does it feel to wake up in the worst place you can iine? Of course, you’re luckier than me because you knohy you’re there"

"Fuck you! You think you’re sneaky? You used ic The whole Sub Rosa will know you’re here Mason will know you’re here He’ll kill you"

I ain, fat man This knife doesn’t disturb the aether and doesn’t leave any ical traces Pure stealth tech, which is sort of its point That, and not killing its victims unless I tell it to"

"Oh God, look what you did"

"God’s away on business, Kas Talk to ht you were dead When you disappeared, we all thought you were dead I mean, what Mason did, it worked?"

"I was alive and in Hell for eleven years, so, yeah, you could say it worked"

"How could you live through soht about you"