The Damnation Game

He was dreaming her. The wound was open, and it pained him to touch it again. Blood was ru

He could see nothing; hear nothing. The state he moved in-did he even move?-was not susceptible to the senses. Now, though he had no proof of the perception, he was sure he was abstracted from his body. It was behind, below him: an untenanted shell. Ahead of him, Carys. He would dream his way to her.

And then, just as he had thought he could take pleasure in this extraordinary journey. Hell opened in front of him-

Mamoulian, too intent on the Razor-Eater, felt nothing as Marty breached him. Breer made a half-run forward, lifting the machete and aiming a blow at the European. He sidestepped to avoid it with perfect economy but Breer pivoted around for a second strike with startling speed, and this time, more by chance than direction, the machete glanced down Mamoulian's arm, slicing into the cloth of his dark gray suit.

"Chad," the European said, not taking his eyes off Breer.

"Yes?" the blond boy replied. He was still leaning on the wall beside the door, posed there like an indolent hero; he had found Whitehead's cache of cigars, pocketing several and lighting one. He blew a cloud of dusty blue smoke, and watched the gladiators through a blur of drink. "What do you want?"

"Find the pilgrim's gun."

"Why?"

"For our visitor."

"Kill him yourself," Chad replied nonchalantly, "you can do it."

Mamoulian's mind revolted at the thought of laying his flesh on such decay; better a bullet. At close range it would lay the Razor-Eater to waste. Without a head even the dead couldn't walk.

"Fetch the gun!" he demanded.

"No," Chad replied. The Reverend had said plain speaking was best.

"This is no time for games," Mamoulian said, taking his attention off Breer for a moment to glance across at Chad. It was an error. The dead man swung the machete again, and this time the blow found Mamoulian's shoulder, lodging in the muscle close to his neck. The European made no sound but a grunt as the blow fell, and a second as Breer pulled the blade out of its niche.

"Stop," he told his assailant.

Breer shook his head. This was what he had come for, wasn't it? This was the prelude to an act he'd waited so long to perform.

Mamoulian put his hand up to the wound at his shoulder. Bullets he could take and survive; but a more traumatic attack, one that compromised the integrity of his flesh-that was dangerous. He had to finish Breer off, and if the Saint wouldn't fetch the gun then he'd have to kill the Razor-Eater with his bare hands.

Breer seemed to sense his intention. "You can't hurt me," he tried to say, the words coming out in a jumble. "I'm dead."

Mamoulian shook his head. "Limb from limb," he murmured. "If I must. Limb from limb."

Chad gri

Marty hadn't realized how pleasurable the experience of travel had been a passenger of pure thought-until he plunged into Mamoulian's body. He felt like a ski

In this maelstrom his feelings for her had the purity of mathematics. Its equations-complex, but elegant in their proofs-offered a nicety that was like truth. He had to hold on to this recognition. If he once relinquished it he was lost.

Though without senses, he felt this new state struggling to impinge a vision of itself upon him. At the corners of his blind eyes lights flared perspective opened up and closed again in an instant-suns threatened to ignite overhead and were snuffed out before they could shed warmth or illumination. Some irritation possessed him: an itch of lunacy. Scratch me, it said, and you needn't sweat anymore. He countered the seduction with thoughts of Carys.

Gone, the itch said, deeper than you'd dare to go. So much deeper.

What it claimed was perhaps true. He'd swallowed her whole, taken her down to wherever he kept his favorite things. To the place where the zero he'd tampered with at Caliban Street was sourced. Face-to-face with such a vacuum he would shrivel: there would be no reprieve this time. Such a place, the itch salad, such a terrible place. You want to see?

No.

Come on, look! Look and tremble! Look and cease! You wanted to know what he was, well you're about to get a worm's-eye view.

I'm not listening, Marty thought. He pressed on, and though-like Caliban Street-there was no up or down, no forward or back in this place, he had a sense of descent.. Was it just the metaphors he carried with him, that he pictured Hell as a pit? Or was he crawling through the European's i

Of course you'll never get out, the itch said with a smile. Not once you get down there. There's no way back. He'll never shit you out. You'll stay locked up in there, once and for all.

Carys got out, he reasoned.

She was in his head, the itch reminded him. She was flipping through his library. You're buried in the dung-heap; and deep, oh, yes, my man, so deep.

No!

For certain.

No!

Mamoulian shook his head. It was full of strange aches; voices too. Or was that just the past chattering to him? Yes, the past. It had buzzed and gossiped in his ear more loudly in these recent weeks than ever in the preceding decades. Whenever his mind had idled, the gravity of history had claimed it, and he had been back in the monastery yard with the snow falling and the drummer-boy at his right-hand side quaking, and the parasites leaving the bodies as they cooled. Two hundred years of life had sprung from that conspiracy of moments. Had the shot that killed the executioner been delayed by mere seconds the sword would have fallen, his head would have rolled, and the centuries he'd lived would not have contained him; nor he they.

And why did this cycle of thoughts return now, as he looked at Anthony across the room? They were a thousand miles and seventeen decades from that event. I'm not in danger, he chided himself, so why quake? Breer was teetering on the edge of total collapse; dispatching him was a simple, if distasteful, task.

He moved suddenly, his good hand snatching at Breer's throat before the other had a chance to retaliate. The European's slender fingers dug through the mush and closed around Breer's esophagus. Then he pulled, hard. A goodly portion of Breer's neck came away in a splutter of grease and fluids. There was a sound like escaping steam.

Chad applauded, cigar in mouth. In the corner where he'd collapsed Tom had stopped whimpering and was also watching the mutilation. One man fighting for his life, the other for his death. Hallelujah! Saints and si