“Told you I could do it,” she says.

“Good job. Now go take a shower. You smell like a love-hotel welcome mat.”

Hattie stands at the edge of the hole, looking down.

“Don’t look like much, does it?”

Traven says, “The core of the first nuclear bomb was only sixty-four kilograms and it leveled a city.”

“That so? Aren’t you a font of useless information.”

“I didn’t drop it,” says Candy. “It shot away from me when I tried to touch it.”

“Maybe it didn’t like you,” I say. “The father said it might be alive. Maybe your Jade form freaked it out.”

“Touchy little bastard, for a weapon,” says Candy.

I look at Traven.

“Okay, Father. You’re up. Let’s see if it likes you.”

“Do you think it’s safe now?” he says.

“When I had it before it only hurt anyone when I was angry or threatened. As long as you’re calm, it should be fine.”

“Calm,” he says, and looks at me. “That’s a tall order right now.”

Traven’s eyes are a little glassy. He looks far from a hundred percent as he gets on one knee and gently reaches for the 8 Ball.

“You’ll do fine,” I say. “Nice and easy. Look out for any sharp edges. It can nick you.”

He hesitates before reaching down again. Lays his hand on top of the ball and holds it there for a second. Nothing happens. He relaxes and gets a grip on it and pulls it out. He’s smiling when he stands up.

“I think the books were right about it being alive,” he says. “It feels like it’s asleep.”

He brings it over to us. I’d rather have it a mile away, but beggars can’t be choosers.

“We’re all right,” he says. “It’s over.”

“Let’s get out of here and go home,” says Brigitte.

“In a minute,” says Traven. His smile is vacant. There’s something wrong with his eyes.

He turns and hands the 8 Ball to Hattie. She takes it from him like she knew exactly what was going to happen.

I should have seen it before, but I’ve been so wrapped up in my own aches and bullshit that I missed it. One of us isn’t who he seems, said Nefesh. Father Traven is possessed. Someone in Hell is using the possession key. They’ve taken him over and Hattie knew it was going to happen.

“What are you doing?” says Vidocq.

Hattie cradles the 8 Ball against her chest.

“Just doing what he was told,” she says.

I reach for Traven, but before I can get to him, his eyes flutter closed and he slumps to the floor, his head cracking on the pavement. Brigitte starts for him but I grab her and push her behind me.

I take a couple of steps toward Hattie. I want to rip her apart. Traven is bleeding where his skull hit the floor. I want to see her bleed too. She steps back, but not because she’s afraid.

“Who are you?”

“Don’t you recognize me?” she says, her voice coolly amused. “You destroyed my home. You humiliated me. You’re an Abomination and your presence in this city has brought it and me nothing but misery.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Her face shifts. Her skin crawls. The old woman becomes a young one, then cycles back to a crone, like the phases of the moon.

“Medea Bava,” I say. “I heard you were Deumos’s sorority sister. Shouldn’t you be in Hell?”

“And leave the world to your tender mercies?” she says.

“You killed Hattie and took her place. Why?”

“For just this minute. To see the look on your face when you knew.”

“Why didn’t you just take the 8 Ball and go?”

“I didn’t know where it was in here any more than you did. Besides . . . letting you find it for me was a chance to watch you and your friends suffer, and that alone was reason enough to watch and wait.”

I pull the SIG from my pocket and aim for her head.

She holds up the 8 Ball.

“You say it works when you’re angry or threatened? How do you think you make me feel?”

I lower the SIG and put it back in my pocket.

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Why, return it to its rightful owner.”

She pulls out a pendant from under her robes. I recognize the shape. It’s Aelita’s angelic sigil. Hattie kisses it three times.

“Come to me, sister. Come and receive what’s yours.”

“Medea.”

It happens instantly. The voice comes from behind us. Aelita, in a Maggie Thatcher power suit, shoulders her way past Vidocq and Candy. Bumps my shoulder as she goes past.

“You have the Qomrama, I see.”

Medea uses it to point in my direction.

“The Abomination almost had it. I took it from him and now I want to do what’s right.”

“Thank you, sister,” says Aelita, and reaches for the 8 Ball.

Medea’s lips go from a smile to a hard straight line. The 8 Ball shoots from her hand like a cannonball, slamming into Aelita over the heart, driving her across the lobby and into the wall. Spinning blades sprout from the ball, whirring like rotary saws burrowing into her chest. An angel’s scream is a terrible thing to hear. It’s the death wail of something that was never supposed to die but has lived long enough to see the universe turned upside down as it now stares down death’s gullet. Holy angel blood splatters the floor and our feet as the Qomrama punches through Aelita’s chest and out her back. She slumps to the ground, and for a few seconds she twitches, trying to breathe, trying to focus on something besides the pain, her blood, and fractured bones. Medea hasn’t moved. The 8 Ball flies from Aelita’s chest and back into her hand. Aelita gasps one more time and fades away. An angel’s death. Leaving nothing behind but one more hole in the universe.

Medea looks at me.

“Her war with God was a child’s thing,” she says. “It got in the way of the true work.”

“Coming after me? I’m flattered all to hell,” I say.

Medea makes a face. Behind her, Traven’s eyes flutter open. He looks around for a second, unsure what’s happening. With his sleeve he wipes blood from his eyes.

“You’d like to think that all this is for you, wouldn’t you, Abomination?”

“You sure talk like it is.”

“I call you by your true name because it’s the one thing Aelita was right about. You’re the filth of the universe.”

“So you’re not going to be in our Secret Santa pool?”

Traven gets up unsteadily behind her. I keep hold of Brigitte.

“This . . .” Medea holds up the 8 Ball. “This will do the real work now. I’ll return to Deumos and my true sisters in Hell and we’ll finally bring the Angra Om Ya back home.”

I take a step and she steps back. Right into Traven.

“No you won’t,” he says. He picks up a fist-size piece of concrete and slams it into the back of her head. Medea drops the 8 Ball and lunges after it. Before she can get her hand on the thing, Traven has his hands around her throat and pulls her upright.

He says, “You want to go to Hell? I can send you there forever.”

He plants his mouth over hers, like a terrible kiss. The Via Dolorosa. He spits millions of the sins he’s eaten over the years into her, burning her insides, turning her soul blacker than any normal human’s could ever be. Guaranteeing her the lowest depths of damnation.

But something is wrong. I’ve never seen the Dolorosa take this long before. Bava spasms and tries to push him away. Digs her nails into his face. Then goes slack. Traven’s skin is white. He lets go of Bava, tenses, and falls onto his back in some kind of seizure. I let go of Brigitte and we run over. I hold down his shoulders and Brigitte grabs his legs until it passes. When Traven opens his eyes, they’re dull and the whites are red with blood. He’s blind. His face and hands are covered in deep red hemorrhages. His heartbeat is an unsteady staccato. Each of his slow, shallow breaths is harder for him to take than the one before. When he can talk, it’s just a whisper.

“I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I gave it to her.”

“It’s okay. You couldn’t help it. Everyone knows.”

“Does she have it?”