The room is dark and smells of mold and something sweet. Like old soft-drink syrup spilled and left to go bad in wet carpets. Brigitte has her flashlight on. I can make out shapes under the collapsed ceiling. Booths. Pool tables. Pinball and motorcycle-racing machines against the walls.

“What the hell is this place?” I say.

“It’s one of those family joints,” says Candy. “You know. The family fills up on pizza and the kids get to run around and play games, including climbing around in ball pits.”

She bounces some of the plastic balls off my chest.

“We’re saved by America’s shitty eating habits,” she says.

Brigitte leads the way out of the pit and we follow her through the restaurant. The aluminum doors have long since been knocked down. We step over them and a small sea of broken glass and then we’re back in the main floor of the mall.

I say, “Hallelujah. Back where we started.”

“Not quite,” says Delon.

He’s standing by one of the upright mall maps.

“According to this, we’re one floor above the baths.”

“Lead the way,” I say.

He starts down a long flight of marble stairs. There’s a wet breeze coming from below and the smell of salt. Seawater?

WE COME DOWN into the middle of a whole spa complex. Massages. Manicures. Hair salons. Skin salons. Probably designer blood transfusions too. But it looks more like we landed in Dracula’s forgotten root cellar. Mushrooms sprout from mist-covered cracks in the marble floor. Small, stunted palm trees and bromeliads sprout along the hall. It looks like this entire level of the mall is rotting in the salt air. The walls and ceiling have buckled from the moisture. Dripping vines dangle from the metal grid that once held ceiling tiles. In our feeble lights it looks like no one has been down here in a thousand years.

Underneath the vines and mold on one wall is a sign pointing the way to the Roman baths. As we head down there I move the bones from my pocket into the lining of my coat. Stick the SIG in my pocket. If I can’t throw any hoodoo, I’m sure as shit going be ready to blast every Shoggot and monster Morlock piece of shit in Kill City.

There’s a cool wind blowing between the doors to the baths. Maybe a hole that’s letting in a sea breeze. Thin, dawn light filters through filthy windows in the ceiling several floors above the main bath, turning it into a strange ceremonial space. Somewhere to come for a baptism or human sacrifice after getting a perm.

There’s a fake Roman temple at one end of the bathing area. The main pool is octagonal, with three tiered steps down to a foot of tea-colored water full of loose tiles and broken furniture. Delon heads for the temple. The others circle the pool, staring into the scummy water like maybe the 8 Ball will float to the surface like Excalibur and fling itself into our arms. I sit down on the top step of the pool and take out a Malediction. The flare from the lighter gets everyone’s attention, but when they see it’s just me, they go back to looking disappointed.

“What happens now?” says Traven. “Does anyone know how to summon the ghost?”

All their beady little eyes turn in my direction. I shake my head.

“Don’t look at me. I couldn’t pull a bunny out of a hat right now.”

“Anybody else?” says Traven. “Brigitte. You worked with the dead. Do you know anything?”

She squats at the top of the pool and flicks in a pea-size piece of concrete with her thumb.

“This is the wrong type of dead. I know nothing about ghosts.”

“Vidocq? Do you have any tricks or potions?”

Vidocq raises his hands and drops them to his sides, a gesture of exasperation.

“Rien. Nothing.”

“We can’t have come all this way for nothing.”

Candy comes over and hands me her water bottle. I didn’t even know I was thirsty, but once I start drinking, it’s hard to stop. I hand her back the bottle.

“Any ideas?” she says.

“One.”

“You better act on it before you have a mutiny.”

I take a puff of the Malediction.

“Hey, asshole,” I yell. “Come out, come out, or I’m going to burn Kill City down. Also, Aelita sent us for the Qomrama.”

A gust of wind stirs the water. The light from the ceiling dims for a moment.

“Liar,” comes a disembodied male voice. “Aelita wouldn’t let you pick up her laundry.”

“If I say your name three times, will you show us your pretty face, Bloody Mary?”

“Why? I’m happy this way.”

“Are you afraid of us?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“You’re afraid of something,” I say.

“So are you, sonny. Being afraid is one of the realities of existence.”

Delon is back by the pool. He looks around the room, trying to pinpoint the ghost voice. Brigitte and Traven are as wide-eyed as starstruck teenyboppers. Vidocq, Candy, and I have all run into ghosts before. The others have never been in a real haunted house. Welcome to the Loudmouthed Dead Club.

“You know, for someone people keep telling us is a madman, you don’t sound all that crazy. Say something batshit for me so I know it’s really you.”

Silence. The cold wind blows in from a door at the back of the room.

“Samael is back in Hell. I don’t know if that’s exactly crazy, but it’s pretty funny. Also, one of you isn’t what he seems.”

No shit, Casper. It’s a real effort not to look at Delon.

I say, “I know all about that. How do you know about Samael?”

“The same way I know when and where you got that nasty Kissi arm.”

Slowly, he comes into focus, like an image on a video screen. First, the general shape forms and then it finally sharpens.

He’s entirely green—head, hair, and skin. And maybe a little taller than his brothers. Definitely not as round. Calling him buff would be stretching it, but by the family standards, the guy is Captain America.

“Fuck me. I should have known one of you was behind this bullshit. Does Muninn know you’re here?”

The ghost’s face splits into a wide grin. Not ghost. Mr. Muninn’s almost-twin. One of the God brothers.

“The five of us share some thoughts and knowledge in common, but we each have our secrets. This is one of mine.”

I get up and flick the Malediction into the pool a couple of feet from him.

“Hey, Father. Let me make some introductions. Father Traven, meet God. God, meet Father Traven.”

Traven’s eyes narrow at me. He can’t tell if I’m kidding or not. But he’s a smart enough guy and we’ve talked enough and he’s read enough arcana to work out the rest for himself.

“You’re God?” he says.

“A piece of the pie, yes. You look disappointed. Turn that around, multiply it by a million, and you’ll know how I feel about you people.”

I stand next to Traven in case he decides to freak out or faint.

“Remember how I told you that God had a nervous breakdown and broke into little pieces? The Mr. Muninn part is in Hell. Ruach is driving everyone crazy in Heaven. Neshamah is dead. That leaves two. Which one are you?”

“Nefesh,” he says, and mimes doffing a hat. “The smart one. The one no one even looks for because he’s an incorporeal, crazy old spook in a town teeming with them.”

He becomes solid, standing on the water like a lime Jell-O Jesus. He points at me.

“You, pretty boy. Give an old man a cigarette.”

I toss him the Maledictions and the lighter. Nefesh catches one in each hand. He rolls his eyes when he sees the cigarette brand. But he still takes one and lights up. Being a God of love, he tosses me back the lighter and smokes.

“I’m speechless,” says Traven. “I devoted my life to you and now I see you’re nothing but a ridiculous, foulmouthed little man.”

Nefesh raises a finger to Traven. An admonishment.

“You didn’t devote your life to me. You lost your calling a long time ago and hid from me in your books. And then you wrote that one particular book. Naughty, naughty.”