Richard Kadrey - Blind Shrike

"It is accomplished! We believed the Butcher Bird would free the Dominions, as revenge when you and the slut died. But you have done her job for her. The universe is ours."

"You're talking to a guy who just cut off his own head. You don't get to tell me what's yours and mine," said Spyder. He grabbed the head Clerk and ripped away the stolen skin that covered his face. In shock, both Clerks retreated a pace or two. The head Clerk touched his fleshless face, feeling for the missing meat, his eyes wide and locked on Spyder's.

"For your information, that cold knot in your belly is what we talking meat call fear," Spyder said. He then spoke a single word and the Clerks tumbled to their knees. They grew smaller and softer, as if their bones were turning to warm butter, until they were nothing but pale puddles on the stone floor.

Spyder looked back across Hell as the ancient wall began to crumble. Hands clawed at the gigantic bricks from the other side. Strange howls filled the air. Spyder became aware that both Xero and Lucifer's armies had grown considerably smaller since the Dominions had made their presence known. Deserters continued to sprint out the front of the palace.

Lucifer limped to Spyder and stood next to him, watching the ancient wall crumble. "You may have beaten the Clerks so cleverly that you've killed us all," he said.

Xero came slowly down the stairs. "What did he do?"

"He's released the Dominions," said Lucifer.

"Why?" asked Lulu.

Before Spyder could say anything, Xero charged down the stairs to where Shrike was cradling her father in her arms. He grabbed her by the hair and held a knife to her throat. "Come to me, old ones! Give me the power to defeat my enemies! I make this blood sacrifice to you."

Lucifer let loose an animal howl and charged, his body morphing as he went. His cheeks split as misshapen rows of rotten shark's teeth sprouted from his jaws. Fire jetted from his eyes. As he leapt, his arms and legs twisted into the mad animal forms Spyder had seen in medieval woodcuts of the Devil.

Shrike fought Xero's hand from her throat. The man was concentrating on Lucifer. Spyder realized that Xero was reciting a spell.

"Look out!" Spyder screamed.

A blur of silver shot from the great book and into Lucifer's spine, as Apollyon's knife flew across the room and embedded itself into his back. The prince of Hell collapsed at Shrike's feet. She swung her sword backwards over her head and buried it in Xero's skull. The general just laughed.

"When I've bled you dry, I'll bring you back here and make you my concubine. I'll rape you in Hell forever."

Lucifer, back in his more presentable angelic form, staggered to his feet. "Alizarin," he said and reached out his hand. Shrike grabbed Lucifer and pulled him toward her, hard, throwing herself onto the floor.

Spyder ran to them, covering Shrike's body with his own. Xero screamed. Spyder turned and saw the general pushing madly at Lucifer's body. The tip of Apollyon's blade, which was protruding from Lucifer's belly, had buried itself in Xero's mid-section when Shrike had pulled Lucifer down. The general shrieked as the blade cooked him. Lucifer grabbed the man, bearhugging him, driving the knife in deeper. Their bodies glowed red. Xero's blackened lips curled back like burning paper.

The general was suddenly very still. Lucifer pushed free and backhanded Xero across the face. The fried mortal soul crumbled, a burned-out husk.

Spyder went to Lucifer and pulled the blade from his back.

"I thought that knife killed demons," he said.

"You're not any fool and I'm not any demon," said -Lucifer, falling back against the railing.

Spyder snatched the tunic from Xero's corpse and went to Shrike. Holding her upright, Spyder pressed the cloth over the wound in her chest. Lulu, exhausted, collapsed near Lucifer. Across Hell, the wall finally came down and the Dominions poured through. They were so alien and so massed together, shouldering their way from their exile in chaos, that, later, no one there, mortal or angel, could describe what exactly came into this universe through the ancient breech in time and space. There were shaggy heads and arms that were lined with eyes, reptile wings, tentacles, cocks with teeth, legs like a bird's and legs like machines. Emerald flesh, exposed bones, metal talons, fire, wind and ice.

The Dominions circled the roof of Hell once, twice and on the third pass, shot up together, blasting through and out into the night sky. Gazing up through the glass dome atop Lucifer's palace, Spyder saw familiar constellations. Orion. The Big Dipper. It was Earth. It was home.

"So Spyder, what was the deal with your head back there? 'Cause if you're a zombie, I got dibs on Shrike," said Lulu.

"Ask your boyfriend what happened. He's the one who gave me the idea," said Spyder. He turned to Lucifer. The Prince of Hell sat with his elbows on his knees, his fingers steepled, staring out at his ruined kingdom. "How'd you know that my dying would kill the golem, but not me?"

"I guessed," Lucifer said. "You had a fifty-fifty shot."

"Something happened when I got sucked into the book. I was with the Dominions for a second, I think. Some of their life or whatever keeps them going rubbed off on me."

"I think you're right," said Shrike. "Look." She moved the cloth from where Spyder had been holding it on her chest. The wound was closed.

"Come here," Spyder said to Lulu.

"Why? I was kidding about macking on your girl."

"Sure you were. Come on down here."

Lulu came down the stairs and sat next to Spyder.

He took both her hands, saying, "I'm not sure what I'm doing, so just close your eyes and relax."

"It's prom night all over again."

The palace was a disaster. The walls were webbed with cracks big enough to put a fist in. Part of the dome had collapsed. Hell proper was in sad shape, too. Millions of tons of rock had come crashing down when the Dominions blasted their way out of the place. Most of Lucifer's new Heaven and much of Pandemonium lay in ruins. The group had all remained on the stairs throughout this harrowing of Hell. Exhausted, bleeding, they were way down the road past both fear and surprise, stalled between numbness and wonder. None of them even blinked when Shrike's father disappeared. They chose to see it as a sign of release, that with Xero's passing the curse that held the old man's spirit in the underworld had been broken.

"That fool's curses were as thin and hollow as his head when I cracked it," Lucifer had said.

"When you get through with my hands let me know, okay?" Lulu asked. "I've got a nuclear meltdown nose itch."

"I think we're about done here," Spyder said.

"Dude, what did you do to me? I feel all hot and strange."

"Go look."

She stepped over the fallen masonry and broken glass, navigating her way across the buckled floor to Lucifer's curiosity cabinets. None of them had broken, but they lay at crazy angles against the walls and floor. The Chaos cabinet was still standing in its original spot. Lulu went to it and checked herself in the glass. Her reflection stared back with the swirling nothingness behind it.

"It's me," she said. "I look like me again."

"Eyes and skin and everything. Did I get it all right?"

"You tricked me out like an old Chevy. For what? The Clerks still own me. They'll just come and take these eyes, too."

"Lulu, the Clerks are gone. At least the ones who snagged you. If any others ever show up, I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow `em all down."

Lulu leaned her head on the cabinet, holding her belly. "Why do I feel like this?"

"You were empty. They were making you into them. That's what they do. You're alive again. Being alive hurts," said Spyder. "And you haven't had a stomach in a couple of years. That one's probably hungry."