Panting, LeHorn nodded. “I think so.”

  “It is,” Lucifer confirmed. Shifting form, he clambered to his feet, arising in his human guise. His feathered wings spread out behind him, nearly touching the ceiling. The broken chains jangled, swaying slightly.

  “Thank you,” he murmured. “Thank you all.”

  “What happened to you?” Frankie asked. “I mean, I get how they managed to capture the rest of us...but you’re an angel.”

  “As I said, the fight with Kandara left me drained. More than I had planned. Ideally, we would have destroyed him as a group. There would have been strength in our numbers. But the rest of you were sidelined by his followers, so I opted to banish and imprison him instead. But when I couldn’t do that either, I used all of my power to destroy him myself. In such a weakened state, it was easy for them to capture me.”

  “Okay,” Frankie said, “but why couldn’t you imprison him?”

  “Because one thing my brother neglected to tell us—or maybe he did, and I just forgot—is that the Void, the dimension where we could have imprisoned Kandara, is ruptured. Ob and his Siqqusim were the first to...”

  He trailed off, staring intently at LeHorn. One by one, the others turned to the farmer, as well. His complexion had grown pale.

  “What’s wrong?” Teddy asked.

  “Ob. I met him.”

  Tony frowned. “The fuck are you talking about?”

  “After Baghdad. When the building collapsed, I was trapped. Pinned in the wreckage. So, I escaped through the Labyrinth. I didn’t know where I was going, though. I came out on another planet, and Ob was there.”

  “Indeed?” Lucifer arched an eyebrow.

  LeHorn nodded. “Yeah. And I must say, he’s no fan of yours. He said that we shouldn’t trust you.”

  “I think we’ve moved beyond that, haven’t we?” Lucifer turned to Teddy. “Do you trust me now?”

  “I believe,” Teddy replied simply.

  Smiling, Lucifer turned back to LeHorn. “What else did Ob say to you?”

  “That you’ll be our downfall. And that he had an offer for us. He wanted us to join forces with him, against the Creator, and He Who Shall Not Be Named, and Hell, and everyone else. He said we could remake the universe in our own image.”

  Lucifer’s smile stayed in place. “And what did you think of all that?”

  “Well, he’s lying, obviously.”

  “Obviously.”

  “How did you get away from him?” Frankie asked.

  LeHorn ran a hand through his hair. “He...left. He said he had other things to do, and then I came here and rescued you guys.”

  “And you did a hell of a fucking job, too,” Tony said. “So, finish telling us what happened with Kandara. If there’s a hole in the Void, then how did you beat him?”

  “By using all of my strength,” Lucifer repeated.

  “Then what do you need us for? If you can beat these fuckers single-handed, then why are we along for the ride?”

  “Because I can’t beat them all singlehandedly. The lesser Thirteen—entities like Meeble or Kat? Yes. But you see what fighting a middleweight like Kandara has done to me. Facing off against Leviathan or He Who Shall Not Be Named alone, particularly in the state I’m currently in? They’d destroy me.”

  “And Kandara?” Frankie asked. “You beat him, right?”

  “He’d been well fed by his worshippers. As I said, I expelled nearly all of my energy to ultimately defeat him. He is destroyed.”

  “For good?” Bloom asked.

  Lucifer nodded.

  “Thank you for that,” Bloom said. “I just wish I could have seen it.”

  “So...” Frankie paused, studying each of them. “What’s our next move?”

  “We need to make a side trip,” Lucifer said. “We’re going to Hellertown, Pennsylvania, and the Havenbrook National Laboratory.”

  Frankie felt her stomach flutter at the name. She stared at him, wide-eyed.

  “Frankie?” Teddy reached out and gently touched her arm. “Are you okay?

  “Havenbrook,” she said. “The RHIC.”

  “Indeed,” Lucifer said.

  Tony sighed. “Somebody want to tell us what the fuck you two are talking about?”

  “It stands for relativistic heavy ion collider,” Bloom answered. “It’s a big particle accelerator. The largest in the world. I remember reading about it in the news.”

  “I’ve been there,” Frankie whispered. “And I damn sure don’t want to go back again. Havenbrook is where this all began for me.”

  “Not just for you,” Lucifer said. “Havenbrook is where this started for everyone. It’s where the Void was first ruptured, during an event your kind called the Rising. And if we intend to bring this all to an end, then we must start there. If we don’t close off that hole in the Void, our efforts—and all of reality—is doomed.”

  Part 3

  Full Circle, Broken

  18

  “My God,” Teddy whispered, gaping at the carnage.

  LeHorn had led them through the Labyrinth, traveling from one Earth’s Iraq to another Earth’s Pennsylvania. Stepping through yet another doorway, they’d emerged on a rural private lane, lined with forests and fields of wildflowers. Teddy felt the sun on his skin, and for a moment, he felt a strong surge of homesickness. The countryside reminded him of his home in Punkin Center. Lucifer had told them the place they were going to, Hellertown, was near Allentown. It occurred to Teddy that if that was where they were now, then his home was only a six-hour drive away. Even less than that, if they used the Labyrinth. He wondered what he’d find there, were he to return. This world was obviously not flooded. Indeed, only a few white clouds dotted the brilliantly blue sky. Were his friends still alive there? Would his house be standing? Could he see them again, if only for a moment?

  The breeze picked up, caressing the wrinkles on his face. Teddy sighed. It would be almost idyllic, if not for the destruction all around them. He caught a whiff of decomposition, borne on the wind.

  Bloom made a gagging sound.

  In front of them was a sign. Somebody had vandalized it, blacking out letters and replacing them with spray-painted words. It read:

  HELL

  Tomorrow’s DEAD

  Hell, Pennsylvania

  Authorized Vehicles Only

  ENTER MEAT

  “Who did that?” Tony asked.

  “The dead,” Frankie replied.

  Teddy glanced at her. The young woman swayed on her feet. He reached out a hand and touched her shoulder.

  “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, swallowing. “Yeah, it’s just...I watched all of this happen. This battle. I don’t fucking want to be here again.”

  To their left were office buildings and equipment hangars. To the right was a parking lot. In front of them were the ruins of a guardhouse and a mangled security fence. All around them were signs of battle. He hadn’t seen carnage like this since the war. The pavement was scored and cracked from what Teddy supposed was fire or explosions and littered with thousands of empty shell casings. Brown stains covered the ground. Blood had been spilled here.

  No, Teddy decided. Not spilled. Flooded. It had been a deluge of blood.

  A bewildering array of crashed and blackened vehicles surrounded them—burned out husks of tanks, halftracks, and military transport trucks, crumpled civilian cars and sport utility vehicles. There were also dead bodies, but surprisingly few, given the devastation. Teddy judged that they had been there a long while, based on their condition. The sun and the elements had almost rendered them into stew.

  Tony turned to Frankie. “This is your level, right?”

  Again, she nodded. Her eyes glistened.

  “And you said there were zombies here?”

  “Yeah,” Frankie replied, “crazy as it sounds.”

  “Oh, I believe you. When we all got...born again, I saw zombies in one of my pasts. That fucking Ob guy that LeHorn says he met? I fought him, too, in one life.”

  “Ob was here, too,” Frankie whispered. “Leading the dead.”

  Tony pointed at a nearby corpse. Teddy stared at it, wincing. The departed had been a child.

  “So,” Tony continued, “if the dead were coming back to life, then why are there bodies here?”

  “They probably had head wounds.” Frankie shrugged. “If the brain was destroyed, they couldn’t come back. I know from what Amun did to us that the Siqqusim live inside of people’s brains. The only way to destroy them is to destroy the brain.”

  “So, all of these corpses were zombies?” Tony asked.

  “Some. Probably not all of them. Some of them look like Schow’s men. Maybe they had head wounds, too. I don’t know. It was...I wasn’t really paying attention at the time. I was too busy trying to stay alive and get the fuck out of here.”

  “What did happen here, exactly?” Bloom asked.

  “A battle,” Frankie explained. “There were soldiers, civilians, and zombies. Hell, there were even a bunch of undead orphans. On one side, we had this motherfucker named Colonel Schow. He was this renegade army guy. On the other side? Ob. Except I didn’t know he was Ob at the time. I was...”

  She paused and wiped tears from her eyes.

  “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Teddy soothed.

  “No, I should talk about it. I haven’t...I never had a chance to talk about it. The soldiers...they’d gone rogue, after everything fell to shit. They enslaved folks. Me and some of the other women...they kept us in this truck they called the Meat Wagon. It was a mobile fucking rape machine. During the battle, I was with some other women. Julie, Gina, her daughter Aimee, Meg... I saw so much shit. We freed the slaves, but they got killed by the zombies, who in turn were being shot at by the soldiers. All three groups just sort of blended together after a while. I remember seeing this one soldier running towards me. His clothes were on fire, and half of his face was charred fucking black. I could see pink meat glistening beneath it. You know? I was in a vehicle, trying to escape. He ran toward us, waving his arms, begging for help. I ran him down. It’s...it’s like we were saying back there in Iraq. We’ve all done some shit we ain’t proud of.”

  “Your friends?” LeHorn asked. “The other women?”

  Frankie shrugged. “Meg died. A zombie bit her on the leg and ankle. She bled out. I don’t know what happened to the others. Gina went to search for her daughter. Julie went after her. I never saw them again.”

  “We need to close the breach,” the Exit interrupted. “Where is it?”

  “Far below our feet,” Lucifer said. “Deep within the complex. And don’t be rude, Exit. Let Frankie finish.”

  “No.” Frankie waved them off. “It’s okay. He’s right. We’ve got a job to do.”

  “Why didn’t the Labyrinth bring us out at the exact location,” Teddy asked. “If it’s down below, why did we emerge up here?”

  “The breach is a wound in space and time,” Lucifer explained. “It’s a hole in the Labyrinth itself. We couldn’t travel to it via the Labyrinth, because that portion of reality is destroyed.”

  “Fucking wonderful,” Tony said. “So, how do we reach it?”

  Lucifer smiled. “We walk.”

  He led them through a gaping hole in the security fence. Teddy noticed a fountain. The water inside of it had turned green and scummy. Mosquito larvae wriggled amidst the muck.

  “I reckon they’ll inherit the Earth,” he said, pointing at the insects.

  “Actually, no.” Lucifer turned to him. “We’ve arrived here just a few hours after Frankie’s death beneath New York City. The Siqqusim have already left the planet. Ab and the Elilum have begun to arrive. Their numbers are small now, but will grow as they spread, just as the Siqqusim did.”

  “So, wait,” Frankie said. “Are you saying we can stop this? That we can still save my Earth?”

  “No. Unfortunately, it is too late to stop the Elilum. They are already here. But if we seal the Void again, then we could stop Api and the Teraphim upon their arrival. Wouldn’t they be surprised to see us?”

  Tony grinned. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

  “But we’re not,” Lucifer said.

  “Why not?” Frankie asked.

  Lucifer paused. “Because I don’t think you lot are ready for them yet. The Teraphim burn entire planets to cinders. I think we should start smaller and work our way up to it. Let you get used to your new bodies and abilities. I think confronting Meeble or Kat or Purturabo would be a much smarter choice.”

  “Fuck that,” Frankie grunted. “I vote we stay here and greet their flaming asses.”

  Tony nodded. “We faced off against Kandara already.”

  “And look how that turned out,” Lucifer said. “I’m telling you all, you’re not ready yet. And quite frankly, neither am I. If I have to expend that much energy again, I’ll die. Plain and simple.”

  “Debate later,” the Exit sighed, clearly impatient.

  “Our friend is right,” Lucifer agreed. “Before we face any of the remaining Thirteen, we need to seal the Void.”

  Teddy surveyed the office buildings in the massive complex. “I don’t think this place has electricity. How are we going to get below?”

  Lucifer’s grin returned. “Like I said, we walk. And climb.”

  Teddy frowned. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  They crept through a quiet courtyard, trying to determine which building to try first. The silence was disconcerting. Only their footfalls echoed, seeming all the louder. Corpses littered the pavement and sidewalks, and the stench was incredible.

  Retching, Bloom paused beside a cluster of potted ferns. Once, they’d been part of the facility’s landscaped gardens, cared for and looked after. Now, they were brown and brittle—dead vegetation to go along with all the rotting meat here in the complex. He took deep breaths through his mouth, trying to avoid the smell and not puke. The gruesome tableau was worse than anything he’d seen in Iraq or Afghanistan or any of the other battlefields he’d fought on in pursuit of Kandara.

  He glanced at his companions, noting that almost all of them—even the sociopathic Tony Genova and the otherworldly Lucifer—seemed cowed and impacted by the abattoir. Only the Exit seemed unmoved, calmly stepping over bodies and dismembered parts with no notice.

  Shuddering, Bloom was about to speak, if only to break the horrible stillness, when he noticed that the dead ferns were swaying in the breeze.

  Then he realized that there was no breeze.

  The air was as still as the rest of the facility, and yet the dead fronds moved, stretching toward him as if trying to grab hold, to break free of their roots and pots and soil.

  “What the fuck?”

  Teddy turned toward him. “What’s the matter?”

  Bloom pointed.

  “Yes,” Lucifer observed. “As I said, the second wave has begun to arrive. We should get indoors.”

  “Why,” Bloom asked, “what happens next?”

  “The infestation begins anew,” Lucifer explained, “but this time, with the planet’s plant life and lesser lifeforms—the insects and arachnids and such.”

  “Zombie...trees?” Tony ridiculed.

  Lucifer nodded. “Indeed.”

  “He’s not kidding,” LeHorn said. “I’ve seen it myself, back before I died...or I guess I should say back before I was born again.”

  Tony smirked, incredulous. “And they can kill people?”

  “Those people who are left alive, yes.” Lucifer gestured at the wiggling ferns. “Perhaps not these particular ones, but other plants, certainly. And they kill each other. They move through the network of roots, infecting, spreading the disease, and then moving on.”

  “And the bugs?” Frankie asked.

  Lucifer nodded. “Just as the Siqqusim possessed humans and then hunted down other humans. The dead insects turn on the living insects...and on anything else that’s still left alive and breathing.”

  Tony laughed. “So, what you’re saying is that if you stick around long enough, and survive the zombie apocalypse, you’ll get eaten by some dead ants?”

  “As will we,” Lucifer said, “if we don’t hurry.”

  “This way,” the Exit called.

  The others turned to see him standing in front of a tall building with glass doors, all of which had been shattered. Shards crunched beneath his feet, glistening in the sunlight.

  “How do you know?” Teddy asked.

  The Exit shrugged. “Because I can feel it.”

  “He’s right,” LeHorn agreed. “I can feel it, too.”

  Tony strode toward the building. “Well, come on then. Let’s get this fucking shit over with.”

  The others began to follow, if somewhat reluctantly. Bloom noticed that Frankie lagged behind. She glanced around the facility, studying the grounds.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “My friends, Gina and Julie. They could still be alive. They could be here right now. I should look for them.”

  Lucifer paused and turned. “I would advise against that. They are but two souls. Every moment we delay puts an infinite number of souls in peril.”

  “But I...”

  “Frankie,” Bloom said gently, “look around. If they were here, then...”

  He gestured at the corpses.

  Frankie’s bottom lip quivered, and her eyes welled up. “I left them...I left them here.”

  “I left people behind, too,” Bloom replied. “And it eats at me. But you can’t go back. There’s no cosmic reset button. It’s just—”

  Something buzzed next to his ear. A mosquito. Bloom swatted at it with his palm, but the insect flitted away, and then bit him on the back of his neck.

  “Damn it!”

  He slapped the bug, crushing it against his skin. Then he noticed a wavering black cloud swarming toward them.

  “Is that...?”

  “Mosquitoes,” Teddy said. “I think Lucifer is right. We should get inside. Now!”

  They ran for the building.

  Luckily, the glass doors at the entrance were still intact. The Exit reached them first and tugged on the handle. Finding them unlocked, he quickly slipped inside. The door swished shut behind him.