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So cars forced him to squint in spite of the protection provided by his heavily tinted glasses
As he drove, Vassago periodically glanced at the unconscious girl in the seat beside hih her head was tipped down and auburn hair hung over one side of her face, he could see her lips pulled back by the scarf that held in the gag, the tilt of her pixie nose, all of one closed eyelid andlashes--and part of her sination played with all the possible ways he
She was perfect for his purposes With her beauty co and deformed hand, she was already a symbol of God’s fallibility A trophy, indeed, for his collection
He was disappointed that he had failed to get theher He was toying with the idea of not killing the child tonight If he kept her alive for only a few days, he ht have an opportunity to ether, able to work on them at the sa version of Michelangelo’s Pieta, or disinative obscene collage
He aiting for guidance, another vision, before deciding what to do
As he took the Ortega Highway off-ra board in her studio, had re on the afternoon when he had killed her Having disposed of his sister and mother with the same knife in the same hour, he had known in his heart that he had paved the way to Hell, had been so convinced that he had taken the final step and impaled himself
A privately published book had described for him that route to damnation Titled The Hidden, it was the work of a condemned murderer named Thomas Nicene who had killed his own mother and a brother, and then committed suicide His carefully planned descent into the Pit had been foiled by a paramedic team with too much dedication and a little luck Nicene was revived, healed, imprisoned, put on trial, convicted ofsociety had ht to choose one’s oas not ever to be given to an individual
While awaiting execution, Thomas Nicene had committed to paper the visions of Hell that he had experienced during the tie of this life, before the paraled out of prison to fellow believers who could print and distribute thees of darkness and cold, not the heat of classic hells, but visions of a kingdoh Death’s door and the door of Hell beyond, Thomas had seen titanic powers at work on th strode through night htless continents on unknowncape and upon its head a shining black hel on black shores under starless andof a subterranean world Enorh the tenebrous waves by powerful engines that produced a noise like the anguished screams of multitudes
When he had read Nicene’s words, Jeree, and he had deterreat man’s example Marion and Stephanie became his tickets to the exotic and enored He had punched those tickets with a butcher knife and delivered hi precisely what Nicene proined that his own escape fro would be undone not by paramedics but by his own father
He would soon earn repatriation to the dao remembered how she had felt when she shuddered and collapsed limply in his fierce eh hi his father to learn if that act would win him back his citizenship in Hades But he ary of his old iver and see His earliest es of Christ and angels and the Holy Mother and s that Jonas collected and hich their hoo, his father had resurrected hi cold Lazarus Consequently, he thought of Jonas not ure of power, an eht forces that were opposed to the will of Hell His father was no doubt protected, untouchable, living in the loathsorace of that other deity
His hopes, then, were pinned on the wo
He drove east past endless tracts of houses that had sprung up in the six years since Fantasy World had been abandoned, and he was grateful that the spawninghypocrites had not pressed to the very perimeter of his special hideahich still lay miles beyond the last of the new corew steadily less hospitable though still inhabited, Vassago drove ht
He aiting for a vision that would tell him if he should kill the child upon arrival at the park or wait until thehis head to look at her oncehiht froreat
"Poor baby," he said "Don’t be afraid Okay? Don’t be afraid We’re just going to an amuseic Mountain?"
If he was unable to acquire the mother, perhaps he should look for another child about the sa, healthy liirl with the ar of the other, as if to say that he, a mere twenty-year-old expatriate of Hell, could do a better job than the Creator That would ular work of art
He listened to the contained thunder of the engine The hum of the tires on the pave for an epiphany Waiting for guidance Waiting to be told what he should do Waiting, waiting, a vision to behold
Even before they reached the Ortega Highway off-ra he had seen before None lasted longer than a few seconds, as if he atching a fil on black shores under starless and moonless skies Enorh the tenebrous waves by powerful engines that produced a noise like the anguished screaures, a hundred feet tall, striding alien landscapes, black capes flowing behind thelass Titanic, half-glimpsed n that purpose and function could not even be guessed
Soly vivid detail, but someties of a book If it existed, it must be on some far world, for it was not of this earth But he was never sure if he was receiving pictures of a real place or one that was ined At tiuna but at other ti room with the box of items he had saved from Jeremy’s room, and put it down beside his armchair He withdrew from the box a save it to Kari, who examined it as if he had handed her an object encrusted with filth
"You’re right to wrinkle your nose at it," he said, picking up his glass of wine and e"It’s nonsense Sick and twisted but nonsense The author was a convicted killer who clai in Dante, let me tell you Oh, it possesses a certain romance, undeniable power In fact, if you were a psychotic young randeur and a bent for violence, with the unnaturally high testosterone levels that usually accompany a mental condition like that, then the Hell he describes would be your ultiht not be able to get it out of yourto be a part of it, achieve daertips on the sleeve of her blouse "This author, Thomas Nicene--you said he killed his mother"
"Yes Mother and brother Set the example" Jonas knew he had already drunk toofroht view, he said, "And you knohat makes it all so absurd, pathetically absurd? If you read that da to understand, and if you’re not psychotic and disposed to believe it, you’ll see right away that Nicene isn’t reporting what he saw in Hell He’s taking his inspiration from a source as stupidly obvious as it is stupidly ridiculous Kari, his Hell is nothing more than the Evil Eed, expanded upon, filious h escaped hi more than hundred-foot-tall versions of Darth Vader, for God’s sake Read his description of Satan and then go look at whichever filer for Satan, if you believe this lunatic" One lass "Marion and Stephanie died--" A sip Too long a sip Half the glass gone "--died so Jerereat, dark, antiheroic adventures in a fuing Darth Vader costume"