“So how can we do it?” I ask.

“You can’t,” says Azazel. He looks at Semyazah. “You can’t trust this creature.”

“Why should they trust you?” I ask. “They all know you sent me to kill them. Now you want to keep them in Tartarus just because you can’t get out?”

“How does this place work? Is this meat locker Tartarus or is the machine?”

Semyazah says, “The place and the furnace are parts of a single punishment device. Tartarus is the machine that runs the universe. It provides heat and energy to light the stars, Heaven and Hell, and every place where mortal and celestial life dwell. And we’re the fuel.”

Mammon gives a mad, gleeful little nod. He says, “We’re the souls judged so worthless or relentlessly vile that the universe has no more use for us. All we’re good for is fuel for the fire.”

Did Muninn, Neshamah, and his brothers think up Tartarus on a particularly good day or a bad one? Did they mean to create this place or is it another one of their mistakes? I’m going to have to reconsider whether the demiurge is evil or not because this place is on a whole new scale of evil.

I watch the Metropolis proles working away at the furnace and boiler. Gears and pipes and valves stretch from the floor, spread to the three enormous pipes that disappear into the ceiling.

This is it. God’s ultimate revenge for his kids letting him down. Eventually we’ll all end up down here. Right now it’s only the most monstrous souls, but Muninn and his brothers will get tired of watching humanity fuck up and we’ll end up cordwood, too. So will the rest of the angels. Even Humanity 2.0, 3.0, and 100.0 will eventually disappoint them. When there’s no one left to punish, why would they keep Hellions around? We’ll all end up in the furnace, warming the brothers’ palace, a tiny dot in an empty universe, while they sit around arguing like old biddies for the next trillion years. Or until one of them gets fed up enough to crack open the Big Bang crystal and put them out of their misery, too.

The furnace workers cut down more souls from the conveyor and toss them in the fire.

“We can’t get out the way we came in, but what about up there?” I point to the machine. “Are there any maintenance areas or access tunnels? Someone built this place. Someone has to maintain it.”

“No. God in his infinite wisdom built the furnace well,” says Semyazah. “It might be his greatest achievement. His perfect creation.”

Even Mammon doesn’t argue with him.

When I think about leaving Alice with Neshamah, I get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. He knew what I’d find down here. Wouldn’t it be the biggest joke in history to have survived Hell, Lucifer’s games, and Mason’s bullshit just to have God murder Alice while my back is turned? I can’t even go back and check on her. All I know is that they’re in a paroo.;re in king lot in Eleusis. In L.A., gosh, there can’t be more than fifty of those in the area.

“Has anyone tried attacking the workers?”

Some of the generals nod.

“The furnace has divine protections against that. We have some of the most powerful witches, warlocks, necromancers, and djinn in existence here. They’ve tried every imaginable type of magic to destroy the furnace or break down the walls. They’ve even combined their powers. Nothing has worked.”

“Where exactly does the furnace go?”

A female Hellion general with a hole in her chest says, “One conduit goes up to Heaven. One to Hell, and one to the rest of the universe.”

“Then that’s the way out. How do we attack?”

The souls nearby whisper to each other like they’re going to be held after school if they get caught talking. Azazel smiles smugly. With his meat-loaf face, it’s hard to tell if Mammon is smiling, too. Even Semyazah has turned away.

“Hey, assholes, I only chanced coming down here because there were supposed to be a lot of sharp G.I. Joe types. You’ve been standing around with your thumbs up your double-dead asses for years, so you’ve had time to suss out the weak spots in the machine’s defenses. What are they?”

Semyazah points to the furnace.

“An attack is simple in theory. We’re deemed powerless, so there are virtually no defenses around the furnace.”

“Who are the salarymen bleeding the steam? Are they fighters? Can I take them?”

“You don’t have to. They’re the Gobah. Angels who rebelled after we were thrown from Heaven. Their punishment was that Father took their minds and sent them here.”

“If they’re not in charge, who do I go after?”

“Chernovog,” says Mammon.

“He was the leader of the second rebellion.”

“Where is he? I can’t see him.”

“No. You can’t. The Father took away his visible form, leaving him nothing but an empty space in the air.”

“How do you know he’s there?”

“Beelzebub. Come over here,” yells Semyazah. I remember Beelzebub. He put up a pretty good fight when I crept into his palace. 000his palI had to cut him up pretty bad to kill him. He seems to remember, too, because he’s not in any rush to get near me.

“Stand at an angle,” Semyazah tells him. “Come here,” he says to me. When I get there: “Look.”

It takes a minute to see it. Beelzebub was always a flash boy and his armor is like a gold mirror. As I stare at the reflection of the furnace, a seventh worker slowly comes into view on a platform high above the others. He’s bigger than the other Gobah. He moves well and seems to still have a mind. He climbs all over the furnace on his arms and legs like a spider monkey, making tiny adjustments. He leaves the heavy work to the drones down below.

After a minute, Beelzebub lurches away and sinks back into the crowd.

“You see? No soul, angel, or Hellion can attack Chernovog,” says Semyazah.

I think I just found out why Heaven calls me an Abomination.

“Then it’s lucky for you that I’m none of those things. I’m a nephilim.”

A few of the Hellions laugh. Mostly the military types. The rich ones roll their eyes. Most just stare.

“The nephilim are dead,” says the female general. I think I might have put the hole in her chest with the na’at. “Before we fell, I commanded one of the companies dispatched to hunt them down. The few we didn’t kill killed themselves. Temperamental children, all of them.”

“I’m the last one because I was born after you pricks played Kristallnacht with the others.”

It’s the same as before. Laughs. Eye rolls. Stares.

“I’m Uriel’s son.”

That shuts them up.

“I notice he’s not here with us. Someone is going to have to talk about that. But right now I have to kill another angel. See if it brings back any fond memories.”

I look around for Beelzebub, but he’s long gone. Just as well. His armor is as ghostly as he is, so I can’t steal it off him and use it to see Chernovog.

“General Semyazah, come with me but don’t get too close. The rest of you can follow or you can stand here and generally fuck off. I don’t care. But if you get in my way, I’ll put you in the oven myself, feetfirst.”

It’s a long way to the front of the chamber. Tartarus would be a lot more fun with Segways.

Christ. Look at the shit I do. How can I drag anyone into a life like this?

D;I’ve never tried to kill a God before, but if Neshamah has put a scratch on Alice, I’m going to try.

The front of the crowd is exactly what I thought it would be. Hellion garbage collectors, street sweepers, and small-time merchants. The officers and Hellion elites are all bunched at the far end of the place, leaving mortal souls, Lurkers, and working-class Hellion slobs to be fed into the furnace first. I bet some of those Hellion heavyweights have been hiding at the ass end of Tartarus for centuries. You’d think one of the drones would break up the tedium and take souls from the back of the room once in a while. I’d volunteer to sharpen the hooks for them.