Butcher Bird

"Is someone going to kill someone soon?" Xero called from the stairs. "I was about to win a war."

"You were about to be eviscerated in front of your troops," said Lucifer.

"We know you. You are not a man, but a broken child?" said the head Clerk to Spyder. "You've seen and learned much lately, but you remain a drunken libertine who despises his own foolish weakness above all else. And your mortal body is trapped forever in Hell. But we will take pity and give you the gift of a

"I'm not afraid of you."

"But it is yourself you hate and yourself you must fight?" The head Clerk raised his hand to the palace entrance, where a figure was waiting.

Spyder saw his reflection. Sort of. A version of himself, but scarred like Lulu, crudely stitched together, like the Clerks themselves.

"He is your Shadow Brother, built from a broken memory you left in Berenice. All the blood you left in the street? A very powerful elixir. We sacrificed a few of the organs we'd collected," said the head Clerk. He turned to Lulu. "Child, do you recognize your eyes in another?"

"You got the jump on me in Berenice, bro," said the lacerated Spyder. "But I'm back and bad and ready for love."

"More golem trash," Spyder said to the Clerks. "You think I won't kill it this time?"

"We're counting on it. He's special. Not you in name and form, but you, literally. A strike against him is against yourself? Show him," the head Clerk told the golem.

Spyder watched his Shadow Brother pull the punch dagger from behind his back and slide it hard across his chest, carving a deep, crimson wound. Spyder felt something like a live wire being dragged over his skin. He looked down and saw that he had a chest wound identical to the golem's.

"You know the true names. Use them. Turn him to dust!" called Shrike.

"I can't. I might dust out, too," Spyder said.

Feinting and teasing, the golem came at him with the knife. Spyder backed up and started to draw Apollyon's blade from his belt, but stopped himself. It would be suicide.

The golem kept making little charges, then stabbed and sliced himself. Spyder twitched in pain and bled, feeling each twist of the blade. The golem circled him, splashing blood onto the marble floor and laughing.

"Why are you ru

Spyder backed up. Sweat flowed into his wounds, stinging him.

"Remember the Middle Way, little brother!" yelled Lucifer. "Would the Buddha fight himself?"

Spyder stopped in his tracks, his gaze flicking to Lucifer, then Shrike. He stretched his arms out wide and closed his eyes. The golem rushed him, jamming its knife deep into Spyder's chest. Gritting his teeth at the pain, Spyder wrapped his arms around the golem and held on. They were both bleeding and the floor was slippery with their blood. Spyder lifted the younger, smaller version of himself and spun on his heels, dropping his Shadow Brother onto the book. Gasping, Spyder twisted and threw all of his weight on his doppelganger, pi

Both Spyder's and the golem's heads slid off their shoulders and rolled onto the floor.

Fifty-Six

Stars

Spyder rose on wobbly legs and set his head back on his shoulders.

"You know those days when you just can't do anything right? You're having one of them," he said to the head Clerk.

"This is some trick of yours, Lucifer?"

"It's all me," said Spyder. His throat felt full of pins and needles as he spoke.

"No matter? Alive or dead, you are lost, locked in Hell forever. So is the woman."

"Not necessarily. You did us a favor, Brainiac. Shrike makes these little blood sacrifices when she does small magic. All this golem's blood and mine should be good for one big favor, don't you think?"

"What are you doing?" asked Lucifer.

"I'm sorry, man. You're my friend, but Shrike and I can't spend forever down here."

Lucifer looked stricken. "You don't want to do that, little brother."

"No, but I've got to."

The book was already ingesting the blood Spyder and the golem had spilled on the floor. Spyder laid his hands on the metal cover and whispered strange words that seemed to flow into his mind. He was speaking a language he didn't understand, a tongue so guttural and inhuman that it would have been agony even if his throat hadn't been freshly slit.

The runes etched into the book cover glowed and the remaining blood began to boil. Spyder pulled his hands back as the golem's lifeless body, along with the last dregs of blood, were absorbed into the book.

Far across Hell there was a sound like thunder, only it came from beneath the ground, as if the foundation of the underworld itself had cracked.

"Do you know how insane this is?" asked Lucifer.

"I'm the fool, remember? I do shit you sensible guys wouldn't dream of."

Quivering green light, like a fluorescent bulb shining from the bottom of the ocean, blasted through cracks in the ancient, unfinished wall Spyder had seen while walking to Pandemonium with Ashbliss. The colossal iron reinforcing beams began to bend and buckle as some fantastic new weight pressed against the bricks from the other side.

"Glorious! Glorious! They are here!" cried the head Clerk.

"Not for you."

"It is accomplished! We believed the Butcher Bird would free the Dominions, as revenge when you and the slut died. But you have done her job for her. The universe is ours."

"You're talking to a guy who just cut off his own head. You don't get to tell me what's yours and mine," said Spyder. He grabbed the head Clerk and ripped away the stolen skin that covered his face. In shock, both Clerks retreated a pace or two. The head Clerk touched his face, feeling for the stolen flesh that was no longer there.

"Feeling cold? Something missing?" Spyder asked. He then spoke a single word and the Clerks tumbled to their knees. They grew smaller and softer, as if their bones were turning to warm butter, until they were nothing but pale puddles on the stone floor.

Spyder looked back across Hell as the ancient wall began to crumble. Hands clawed at the gigantic bricks from the other side. Strange howls filled the air. Spyder became aware that both Xero and Lucifer's armies had grown considerably smaller since the Dominions had made their presence known. Deserters continued to sprint out the front of the palace.

Lucifer limped to Spyder and stood next to him, watching the ancient wall crumble. "You may have beaten the Clerks so cleverly that you've killed us all," he said.

Xero came slowly down the stairs. "What did he do?"

"He's released the Dominions," said Lucifer.

"Why?" asked Lulu.

Before Spyder could say anything, Xero charged down the stairs to where Shrike was cradling her father in her arms. He grabbed her by the hair and held a knife to her throat. "Come to me, Old Ones! Give me the power to defeat my enemies! I make this blood sacrifice to you."

Lucifer let loose an animal howl and charged, his body morphing as he went. His body went transparent, like living glass, then burst into a blinding silver light. His eyes, however, dimmed to shimmering, pitiless black pits, and he became what Spyder knew had to be a wrathful version of this original angelic form.

Shrike fought Xero's hand from her throat. The man was concentrating on Lucifer. Spyder realized that Xero was reciting a spell.

"Look out!" Spyder screamed.

A blur shot from the great book as Apollyon's knife flew across the room and embedded itself into Lucifer's spine. The Prince of Hell collapsed at Shrike's feet. She swung her sword backwards over her head and buried it in Xero's skull. The general just laughed.