Richard Kadrey: Blind Shrike

"I remember hungry."

"You okay?"

Lulu nodded. "Yeah."

"I did the right thing, didn't I?"

Spyder couldn't see Lulu's face. Turning, she walked back to the stairs, staring at her hands.

"Yeah, you did good. It's just a lot to get hold of. I didn't realize how much they'd taken."

"For what it's worth, I know how you feel," said Shrike. "I haven't seen colors in so long. I remember them all, but I can't quite recall which is red and which is blue. It's a little overwhelming."

"That's one word for it."

"Sit with me," Shrike said. Lulu came over the wreckage and curled up with her head in Shrike's lap.

"I'd fuck a duck for a cigarette right now," Lulu said.

Lucifer was inspecting his palace. He picked up a couple of fragments of cherry-colored glass that had fallen from the dome. Holding them over his eyes, he peered up through the hole in the roof of Hell.

"Maybe we should put a skylight up there," he said. "I miss the stars sometimes."

"Sorry for busting up the place," said Spyder.

"Sorry for tricking you into the bowels of Hell."

"I was thinking about taking some time off anyway."

Lucifer smiled to himself. "This is all an enormous joke, you now. I manipulated you, but the universe slipped a good one past me."

"By saying `universe' you're trying not to say `God'?"

"Perhaps," said Lucifer. "I had to go to talking meat- sorry, mortals-to save my kingdom. Not only did you have the power to save it, but to destroy it, too. Maybe pride really is my sin. The Painted Man was right in front of me this whole time, and I never even saw you coming."

"Hell, you brought him here," said Lulu.

"Thank you. I'd almost forgotten that little detail." Lucifer picked up a gilded candle sconce, looked around and dropped it again. Going to his curiosities, he began picking up the cabinets that had fallen over. Spyder went to help him.

"I don't know about the Painted Man thing," Spyder said as they turned the wooden Fabergé egg case upright. The gleaming eggs lay in a thousand pieces on the bottom of the velvet-lined cabinet, bejeweled junk. "I don't exactly feel like Jesus Christ or Bruce Lee."

"Good. That's my job," Lucifer said.

"What happens now?" asked Shrike.

Lucifer pulled the cabinet with John the Baptist's heart from where it was leaning precariously against the wall, setting it flat on the floor. Shifting it inch by inch, he got it aligned exactly where he wanted it. Spyder helped him slide the crown of thorns cabinet until it was just so.

"Thank you," Lucifer said. He looked at Shrike. "The Dominions have broken the boundaries of Hell. All bets are off. You can go home any time you like. Me, I begin rebuilding. None of this affects our work here, you know. Yahweh had his little laugh, but we're still building our Heaven." He pulled a scarlet silk kerchief from his pocket and wiped some of the dust off the glass of the cabinet that housed the crown of thorns. "And if he destroys that one, we'll build it again. We have eternity to get it right."

"We're going to have to take the book with us," said Shrike. "Madame Cinders will want it in return for my father." She brushed some of Lulu's hair out of the girl's eyes.

"Take it. I don't want the damned thing around here."

"Can we really give it to her?" asked Spyder. "I got a glimpse of what it is. I don't know anything about magic and look what it did to me. What could someone with her knowledge do with it?"

"She'll do exactly what Xero was going to do. Make a deal with the Dominions and grab as much power she can," Lucifer said. He opened the case with his puzzle boxes and set them back on their proper display stands.

"We can't let her do that," Spyder said. He went to where Shrike was sitting and knelt down next to her. "We can't give her the key to all that power."

"She'll kill my father. Or worse. Curse him again. He'll be right back in Hell and all of this will have been for nothing."

"I don't know what to say."

"Little brother, you're a hero now. You're going to have to learn to learn to think on a larger scale," said Lucifer. He used his kerchief to slap at the dust that had settle on his clothes while moving the cabinets. "You just cracked open a hole in the universe, wrecked Hell, deceived the devil and sent the Black Clerks packing. Even I couldn't do all that and I can do a lot. Yet with all that to your credit, you're telling me you can't control one dying hag?"

"I wouldn't know what to do."

"You have a warrior by your side and the Prince of Darkness for a friend. What you don't know is how to ask for help, but that is how we gain knowledge and improve ourselves."

"Okay," said Spyder. He leaned back his head, threw out his arms and shouted as loudly as he could, "Help!"

Lucifer shook his head. Shrike covered her ears.

"Damn, I've wanted to do that for days," Spyder said.

Lucifer kicked his way through the rubble until he found what he was looking for. When he picked it up, Spyder recognized the knife the head Clerk had used to stab him.

"You asked for help and here it is," Lucifer said. "When troubled by a diseased sorceress like Madame Cinders, you need a miracle. Look to the saints for a cure."

Lucifer took the knife and went to his curiosity cabinets.

"Come here, so I can give you something," he said. Spyder went to him. Lucifer made one quick slice and wrapped the prize in the scarlet kerchief before handing it to over. "Don't lose that."

"I won't," said Spyder, finding himself suddenly able to be a little shocked again.

Shrike went to where the cage with the book had fallen over. The impact had turned the marble beneath it to powder and driven the book several feet into the floor.

"Any suggestions on how we can move this thing? It's a thousand pounds if it's an ounce," she said.

"Travel for all of you, including the book, is being arranged right now," Lucifer said.

"So, we're probably at the goodbye portion of the evening," said Spyder. "I really suck at this."

Lucifer smiled. "I know. I looked into the minds of some of your exes."

"Find anything good in there?"

"You're not universally despised." Lucifer leaned in to whisper, "That includes Jenny. But you need to learn to let go of things that only exist in the past tense."

Lucifer went to Shrike. She smiled and put her arms around him.

"You helped me free my father. I'll always be grateful for that," she said.

"You've lived half your life in light and half in darkness. Which do you prefer?" Lucifer asked.

"When I've seen enough of either I'll tell you."

"Fair enough," he said and leaned in to kiss her cheek. Then reached out for Lulu's perfect, restored hands and gave each a kiss.

"You're a prince, Prince," she said. "You could turn a dyke's head."

"A higher compliment I'll never receive."

Lucifer went to Spyder and the two of them looked at each other.

"Think we're ever going to meet up again?" Spyder asked.

"Abyssus abyssum invocat," Lucifer said. "`Hell calls hell.' For better or worse, we are brothers. We'll see each other again."

"When you get Heaven finished, invite me to the -opening."

Lucifer smiled, nodded toward the palace portico. "Your ride is here."

Spyder turned. He knew what was coming from the sound and the word picture Lulu had painted for Shrike and him back at the Bone Sea. Finally seeing the enormous mechanical spider, however, was a much stranger sight than he'd imagined. Still, the contraption wasn't as frightening as what had been in his head back when he'd been blindfolded. The creature moved so delicately on its long legs, Spyder thought that it looked like it was walking on tip-toe.

Lulu walked up to the machine.

"Cornelius, remember me?" she asked.