And All the Friends of President Reagan - Pt. 3: 1986

"Night Makes Right / The Symbol Remains"

(Back) Ariel, President Ronald Wilson Reagan, The Negotiator
(Front) Kanaan, Sheliast, Nemesis, Sphyne, Senchro
(Art by Dean Stahl)

* * *

The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave.

Ronald Reagan - "Eulogy for the Challenger Disaster" 

June 10th, 1994

At some point, SPYGOD realizes he's all cried out. The wet on his face feels cold, rather than warm, and he's no longer hitching his breath.

"Okay then," he says to the storm, which just seems to be getting worse. It only ever seems to rain in California if there's a funeral, or someone's dying. 

And as for this, well...

He coughs into his fist. Enough of this weak !@#$. Time to butch the !@#$ up and go back in before someone says or does something stupid.

Of course, he gets back into the Reagans' living room as something stupid's already been said. 

"... the heck are you to tell us anything, huh?" George H. W. Bush is berating Aaron, over by the window: "I'm surprised you even came here, tonight-"

"I felt it was my duty to attend," the man says, not looking away from the window to address the man who's shouting at him. 

"Your duty? You've got some nerve talking about that, mister."

"George, please just drop it," his wife says from one of the easy chairs, not too far from the other two men in the room. Barbara's not crying -- he'll give her that much -- but she's clearly upset. 

"Yes, please, just drop it," James Baker sighs: "It's done. We can't change things-"

"And if he and his creepy friends hadn't started this, there wouldn't be anything to change, darn it!"

"Don't you !@#$ing take this out on him," SPYGOD snarls, coming in from the rain and the wet: "Don't you dare."

"Why the heck not?" Bush asks: "He's one of the ones who approached him in the first place, isn't he?"

"And he's also the one who !@#$ing lost everything to help us, !@#$it-"

"He's right," Aaron says, still not turning around from the window: "My deeds after we came to our understanding are not sufficient apology for what we did."

"Maybe not," Baker says: "But they go a long way in my book."

"And mine," Quayle says, not bothering to look at his old boss. 

"Well, that's just flipping great," Bush sighs, turning away and shaking his head: "One of the greatest Presidents we ever had is... I can't even bring myself to say it. And you're all wanting to make nice with the person who helped him get that way."

"We're focusing on the future, George," Baker says, walking over to him: "There's nothing we can do about the past, now. We have to live in the world we made. The world all of us made, together."

"Some !@#$ing world," SPYGOD mutters, thinking of everything they lost along the way. 

"Hey, at least we're still here," Quayle says, trying to smile: "That was kind of the whole point of it, right?"

"Yeah," SPYGOD sighs, nodding: "I just wonder when we're really going to get the !@#$ing bill for what we bought, that day."

And no one has anything to say to that. 

* * *

June 10th, 1986

"Well !@#$ me sideways with a !@#$ spoon," SPYGOD shouts into his communicator as he fires out the window of his flying car, dusting HONEYCOMB agents riding swarms of giant metal insects like they're buzzing dust clouds: "I've got amateur hour at the bug house over !@#$ing DC, here, Second!"

"I know, sir," his new right-hand man is saying: "I've got a general call out to anyone available. But it looks like everyone's tied up across the board."

"You have to be !@#$ing kidding me," SPYGOD shouts, doing a barrel roll to avoid being skewered by radioactive bug sludge: "Is this part of a coordinated attack?

"Not so far as we can tell. Everyone else is just... busy. Sir."

Busy. SPYGOD does not like the sound of that. Not at all.

The skies over the nation's capitol are darkened. Waves of tin locusts are descending upon the city. Once they get here, they're going to start eating everything -- buildings, trees, people -- in order to clear the area for some new model city HONEYCOMB wants to build, here.

And it's all he can do to shoot the advance guard and not get chewed up in return...

* * *

SPYGOD.  

Black leather pants. FRANKIE SAYS ARM YOURSELVES shirt. 

Pink Members' Only Jacket. Curly perm. Steel-Toed High-heels

More guns than anyone has any business having.

(Listening to Sigue Sigue Sputnik's "Love Missile F1-11")
"Teenage crime now fashion's dead / Shoot it up
There goes my love rocket red / Shoot it up"

* * *

"See, here's the thing," John is saying in that warbling, grey voice of his: "You can't just make any old cotton-pickin' alterations to reality that you'd like, any old time you'd like to.

"There's a way about things. An order, for want of a better word."

(He's an Operator. Always has been. Wears grey. Looks grey. Beaten hat. Dusty overcoat. Long nose. Never without a !@#$ drink.)

"Now, any penny-ante magician can bend the world to his will, of course. Been doing it for years. You know all about that, I think.

"But when you wave your wand and say 'abracadabra,' everyone knows the hat didn't have a rabbit in it, before. One moment it doesn't, the next it does. 

"And that's the magic at work."

(Knocks back his drink. Somehow it's still full when he's done.)

"Now, people like us. Operators. We can make it so that the hat always had a !@#$ rabbit in it. Only we know for sure it wasn't there before. We do it all the !@#$ time.

"But it takes us years to figure out how. It's no little thing to unzip the guts of the world and sew it all back together. Accidents cause real problems.

"I bet you can imagine."

(Coughs into his fist. Looks at the table. Then around the run-down bar.)

"And here you're telling me that there's a special way the government has of changing things, now? That they've got the power to just flip a !@#$ switch and make changes to reality? 

"Well, my friend... I think that might just be a problem, don't you?"

 * * *

"Second, this is a direct order," SPYGOD says, as calmly as he can: "You've been working for me for, what, ten years, now?"

"Yes sir."

"And you've been my Second for all of a week, right?"

"Yes sir," Second says, smiling a little as he knows what's coming next.

"Well, if you want to not only have your job another !@#$ing day, not to mention breathe in that time? Get me some !@#$ing strategic talents up here !@#$ing ASAP! I don't care if you have to order out from a god!@#$ Pizza place! I don't care if you have to shake them out of the old !@#$ heroes' home and put their diapers on! Just get me one decent cape up here. Now!"

Second hears the line go dead, and sighs. Some of the other people on the Flier look at him as though he's a dead man walking, already. But he didn't get this far by being a pushover, or being afraid of his boss all but !@#$ting down the phone at him.

He got this far by doing the one thing his boss can't do: delegate, with a !@#$ing vengeance. 

And, after a few seconds to catch his breath and decide who on this bridge needs to feel his boot up their !@#$, he does just that. 

* * *

Point, aim, shoot. Point, aim, shoot. Over and over again. 

SPYGOD doesn't even think about it, after the first 100 or so. He wills bullets to their targets.

He makes them die with his mind.

It's the mystery of the projectile. The riddle of the gun.

A secret handed down one gunslinger to another, like bullets from a barrel.

And until his Second can come through for him, it's just his weapons against all of this. 

("Sometimes you're better off dead / There's a gun in your hands and it's pointing at your head.")

Point, aim, shoot. Point, aim, shoot.

Over and over again. 

* * *

"So let me see if I've got this straight," the Negotiator says, sitting bolt-upright in the booth of the upscale bar they've met at: "You have a friend. And your friend made a deal with... let's call them a rival corporation, for want of a better word?"

"I figure that's the best way to put it, anyway."

(Just another suit-wearing corporate weasel, one thinks. Expensive, crisp suit. Fancy silk tie. $500 haircut. Soothing, even voice.) 

"Now, this deal? It's forever. There's no going back for him, which is the bad news, I'm afraid."

"I know you're disappointed. I would be in your place, too."

(A smile that never wavers, but leaves you feeling cold as ice.)

"But as for the peripheral parts of the deal? The ones that are affecting others? 

"Well, those are not forever. In fact, they're very breakable, provided you know how."

(Every so often, the feeling that there's something behind that smile. A darkness, cold and absolute. Red glowing lines where there should be facial features.)

(The smell of sulphur.)

"However, there is just one catch...."

* * *

"Sir?" Second is saying, exactly four minutes and fifty-nine seconds later: "I've got you some capes."

"Well thank !@#$ for that!" SPYGOD shouts, doing a barrel roll in his car to avoid a shower of busted metal bug guts: "Did you have to call up the old folks home?"

"No sir, I've got you some top talent, in fact. Ten of them."

"Who?" SPYGOD asks, knowing full well that all the top talent he can think of is elsewhere, doing other things.

Then he hears the thunder, from not too far away. Boom after boom after boom, ringing through a clear sky.

"Oh !@#$," he mutters: "Um, Second?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Did you call the White House?"

"I did, sir."

"Did they send the god!@#$ Olympians?"

"Yes, sir. They did. You should be seeing them about now?"

"I am, yes," SPYGOD says, very carefully flying his car out of what's about to become an even more insane warzone, and then accelerating as quickly as he can: "Please have the Flier standing by for emergency assistance and clean-up. Like !@#$ing right now."

"Sir? Is it that bad?"

"That bad?" he winces, looking back just one time: "Second, I think we just !@#$ing bought ourselves a ringside seat in Hades. Literally."

"Oh dear..."

* * *

If he lives to be 200, SPYGOD will never forget this moment. 

January, 1981. Just after Inauguration Day. It's time for the Supergods to meet the new boss.

And he's not having any of their nonsense, anymore. 

SPYGOD stands there, helpless. He watches as the President, who's been a friend an ally for decades, rips into these seventeen well-meaning men and women as though they were delinquent kids. Upbraiding them for their global focus. Accusing them of collusion with the Communists.

Telling them they should be ashamed of themselves for playing at being gods. 

What could he say? How could he have interfered? He has no idea. 

But he sees the look on Seranu's face when Reagan tells him things are going to change. It's the same look that august being gave him when he left that Gathering, back in '77, with Reagan.

Knowing and sad, like he knew this was coming.

Like he knew this had to happen, here and now. 

And yet, here he is, somehow ok with it...?

("I look to you / And your strong belief / Me, I want relief / Tonight")

Their King-Father's certainty shames him. Reminds him of Jesus, carrying the cross.

He looks away, embarrassed, as one friend crucifies another...

* * *

"Oh, that is nothing, truly, my friend," Benjamin Franklin says as he puts yet another wondrous contraption down on a table filled with equally-amazing things: "None of these devices are really more than toys, to be honest.

"You should see the truly impressive work I am doing elsewhere, with myself."

(Much as you'd expect him to be. A portly, older gentleman, looking somewhat out of place in a fine suit and vest. He's kept his old glasses, though.)

"You see, the action by Shift, of bringing me from my time into yours, has caused my body to be suffused with time energy. Now most physicists speak of tachyons, which are particles that travel backwards in time.

"Except that I have become convinced that my particles are not so much a traveling thing as a bridge between places. I am both here, in this time, and still in mine, right where Shift found me. 

"Do you understand?"

(A big contagious smile. Nights of drinking and dancing in a new body, unencumbered by his age and girth.)

(Weird stories of what he gets up to, late at night, when no one is looking.)

"Well, it is very technical. I must confess that half the time I do not know what I'm doing until I have done it. But it is very exciting.

"In fact, I think I may have just made a car that can arrive before it departed. 

"Would you care for a ride?"

(A bigger smile. A layer of innuendo. Strangely compelling attraction.)

(The uncomfortable knowledge that he's been set up for a fall.)

* * *

"This is bull!@#$, son," SPYGOD barks at the young Marine inside the suit of high-tech armor, standing outside what has to be the tenth set of underground, guarded double doors he's gone through in less than fifteen minutes: "You know !@#$ well who I am."

"Rules, sir," the Machinemarine squeaks out.

"Please don't make trouble, sir," the other one there pleads: "This is the White House."

"And I've been welcome here longer than you've been alive, kid."

"Sir, please," the first one all but begs: "Don't get me disciplined. It's my first day here."

"Oh, alright," SPYGOD sighs, showing off an official, laminated picture of him flipping off the camera: "Here's my god!@#$ ID. Just !@#$ing let me through-"

"Sir, will you please just look into the retinal scanner like we asked-"

"It won't work, you dumb!@#$. It's made of glass!"

"Then, the other one? Under the eyepatch?" the other Machinemarine asks.

"Oh sure, let's !@#$ing do that," SPYGOD snorts, and lifts his flap to show off the other eye.

The moment the scanner registers it, it begins to smoke and make unhappy noises. Fortunately, the door does open. 

"Waste of !@#$ing taxpayer money," he says, walking through the doors that were not there just yesterday: "Someone's getting the mother of all kickbacks."

Down one more hall. One more ramp. One more set of doors that is opened for him, this time, and he's in the cavernous Command Room, finally. 

There are big screens on the walls and ceilings, focused on various trouble spots around the world. Technicians and Generals stand everywhere, taking and giving orders. Scientists are gathered around banks of computers, overlooking the reams of data coming in. 

And not a !@#$ing one of them seems to understand the gravity of the situation.

"Alright," he says to those assembled there, which includes the Vice President and Dr. Yesterday: "Does someone want to tell me what the !@#$ is going on?"

"I beg your pardon?" Yesterday says, almost dropping his teacup. The Vice President just sighs.

"You !@#$ing told me you had the Olympians under lock and key until you, and I quote, 'figured this all out,'" SPYGOD says, stomping towards the man with a look like murder on his face: "Well, I just saw them go Full Metal Jacket overhead, Bob. I don't think that counts as !@#$ing figured out."

"Well, yes," Dr. Yesterday says, sighing and gesturing to the big board: "We decided it was time for a field test, (REDACTED). And I think you'll agree the results were pretty spectacular-"

"Oh for !@#$'s sake," SPYGOD groans, grabbing the controls for the big board away from some gawp-eyed tech and refocusing the view from the skies of DC to the ground: "Does that look spectacular to you?"

Everyone gasps at the wreckage. Buildings are burning. Streets melt and catch fire. Storefronts shatter and explode.

And throughout it all stride ten of the Olympians -- gleefully destroying the city they were sent to save as they destroy the enemies that tried to beat them to it. 

"All they !@#$ing did was bring the fight from the skies down to the ground," SPYGOD shouts at everyone there: "No concern for civilians! No concern for property damage! No concern for all the god!@#$ memorials and tourist attractions that make this town a !@#$ing vacation spot instead of the black pit of leftist bureaucracy that it actually is!"

"I think you need to calm down, sir," the Vice President says, as gently as possible.

"Calm down?!" SPYGOD shouts, smashing the controls with his fist: "What does it say when I'm the one being !@#$ing concerned about collateral damage, George? Huh?"

No one has anything to say to that. 

* * *

Inside the Oval Office, Ronald Wilson Reagan sits at his desk, staring into space.

He just forgot where he was, for the third time today. 

It's happening more and more, this absence of self. This disconnection from the here and now.

The moments when he stops being here, and goes elsewhere. 

It's a horrible feeling -- vertiginous and strange. He thinks about what he has to do, and what the day has brought him, and then he sees things.

Terrible things. 

When the state passes, he is back. He knows what he must do, but not always why. 

And he has an understanding, clear as crystal, of what will happen if he gets it wrong.

He reaches into the jar of jelly bellies on his desk, and munches on a few. The taste brings him back to the here and now. 

(How many has he had, today? He used to know. He can't remember, now.)

He begins to write about what he saw. The state of emergency in South Africa. Yet another excuse to keep their people from freedom, but he knows he must criticize but not confront.

He must allow this Apartheid abomination to continue, in spite of what he could do to end it. 

It breaks his heart. So much power, yet so little freedom to use it. All his moves watched over. All his words carefully measured. 

All his decisions made for him, by his Backers. 

("That's just the way it is / Some things will never change") 

He closes his eyes. He refocuses. He writes. 

And it all comes true...

* * *

 

"Oh, the connection to up top is !@#$ real," John warbles: "We Operators, we sort of skirt around it.

"That's why we're all in the Grey. Somewhere between the dark and the light, if you know what I mean.

"And I think you !@#$ well do."

(Still working the same magically-refilled drink, hours later. A little more talkative, now.)

"Normally, the folks up there are happy to just let us stand or fall on our own. Hasn't been a real !@#$ intervention since the Man Jesus, all those years ago.

"And look what a god-!@#$ mess that was. Trying to splice the kingdom of Heaven with the world below it...."

(A wistful look. A crack in the cynicism.)

"But here's the thing. To make this sort of thing work, they'll need a physical point of intersection.

"A link, if you want to call it that."

(Pats his gnarled hand on the table. Nods at it.)

"Oh, you know what I'm !@#$ing talking about?  Well, that just figures. They say you know all.

"Or is that just you saying it, all along? I've never been sure about that.

(A raised eyebrow, then furrowing)

"Well, know this, my friend. As long as that link is there, and they've got some poor !@#$-hole to connect to it? The problems are just going to get worse.

"A lot !@#$ worse.

"Why? Well, it's bad enough now. But just wait until some !@#$ fool gets it in his head to bring about a real change."

(A cocked eyebrow at the obvious question.)

"Like, how about Hitler never came to power? How about no more Communism? How about no more bad guys, anywhere?

 "As it is, they can't even !@#$ing rewrite the fine details on a bakers dozen superpeople. You know !@#$ well about that.

"But just wait till they try to handle all the angles on ancient history, or a whole concept. Just wait till they realize there's too way too many fine details to rewrite.

"And when they can't... well, you'll know, friend. You'll see us there to clean it up. 

"And if we have to clean it up..."

(The most stern and threatening look he's ever seen this man give.)

(It chills. Truly.)

* * *

It's some time later. The fires have been put out. The wounded have been tended to, the damage contained.

And the toys have all been put back in the box.

"This seriously !@#$ing creeps me out," SPYGOD says, watching on closed-circuit TV as the ten Olympians cleared for active duty are marched through the complex, guided by fully-armed and very nervous Machinemarines.

They're all wearing shiny, white uniforms with a big, round O on the right lapel. Black boots and belts. High tech wrist communicators.

(Blank, vapid expressions.)

"Well, it's the best we could do, at least for now," Dr. Yesterday says, pouring himself another cup of coffee from a handy pot. They're in his office, now, going over things now that everyone's had a chance to cool down, somewhat. Blue dwarfs run this way and that, bringing tools and components here and there, as they tend to do.

(And SPYGOD knows better than to ask who made the coffee.)

"'The best you could do,'" SPYGOD mocks: "You're supposed to be our expert on Strategic Talents, Bob."

"It was Mr. Franklin and I," the man says: "We handled it together, and I know I held up my end. So if there's any mistakes...?"

SPYGOD just looks at the man, and then shakes his head in disgust: "'If?'"

"Well, this is a work in progress. It's a very complex thing-"

"Bull!@#$! You're the one go to when we're !@#$ing broken, or growing extra arms or heads! You mean to tell me you can't handle their biology?"

"It's not the biology that's the problem," the scientist sighs, watching as their leader, Seranu, is deposited at the door of his living quarters, and has to be reminded to go in and close the door: "It's their minds."

"What, you can't get them some competent therapy?"

"It's not that simple, (REDACTED). When we rewrote their history the second time... well, something got lost. Something we haven't been able to get back."

"Why the !@#$ did you have to rewrite them, anyway?" his guest says, grabbing a cup himself, and then tipping most of a flask of hooch into it: "What was wrong with the previous story?"

"Oh, having them be gods hiding in mortal form?" Dr. Yesterday says, taking notes as the others are led, in turn, to their homes: "Well, I guess that proved to be kind of sacrilegious. I think the Reverend Falwell complained, and, well, you know how tight he is with the President."

"Don't !@#$ing remind me," SPYGOD snorts: "I had to sit there and listen to him call me a degenerate at the last prayer breakfast. I swear, one of these days I'm going to dress up like Satan and bring a god!@#$ flamethrower..."

"You know, you could try being a little less flamboyant, (REDACTED)," the scientist says: "Sometimes you have to go along to get along."

"And maybe you should ask your !@#$ wife to help you with this problem, Bob," SPYGOD says, deciding not to kick the man's testicles into his skull -- this time.

"Oh, Geri?" Dr. Yesterday visibly blanches: "Well, she's really busy with a lot of projects right now. I don't want to disturb her-"

"No, you just don't want her to know how badly you !@#$ed this up."

"Now, see, that's unfair-"

"Unfair?" SPYGOD snorts: "All those people ever wanted to do was !@#$ing help us out, Bob. And in return, we magically lobotomized them. Twice."

"I had my orders," Dr. Yesterday insists, sadly: "So do you."

"Oh, I know all about those !@#$ orders. I seem to recall fighting a war against some !@#$ers who were all to happy to follow theirs. And I know you know where that led."

"That's..." the scientist blanches again, almost dropping his cup of coffee: "My god, that's offensive."

"Yeah, it is," SPYGOD replies: "But maybe that's why you really don't want to bring Geri in on this, Bob. You know exactly what she'll say.

"And you know why, too."

And then he walks away from Dr. Yesterday before he says, or does, anything more harsh than that.

* * *

The thing they all really remember about that day is the light. 

They all wore special sunglasses, in that room. They were warned to keep them on. They were also told to stand well back from the insertion point. 

And no one was going to argue with those Backers -- not then, not ever.

The room was specially prepared for weeks. Lined with steel they found somewhere unbelievable. Work crews with concrete stood just outside the door, waiting for the signal to brick it up.

But inside, there was something that had to happen, first. A sign of fealty, they said. 

A sign of dominion. 

Reagan alone knelt. He was the one, after all. The one the Backers had chosen to work with.

The one who had taken the yoke upon his own neck, for good or for ill.

Everyone else? They just stood and watched, agog. 

They stared in disbelief as the one called Ariel brought a blazing, long sword from nowhere -- its light the equal of a million suns, yet cold. 

They shook as he drove it into the floor of the room, speaking a language not heard on Earth since the Garden of Eden.

And then they all gladly left when bidden, the heat just starting to lick at the back of their shoes. 

When it was done, and the room sealed, they went up to the Oval Office. There, in the corner, was something that had not been there before. 

A telephone, up on a marble pillar. A big, black and intimidating thing with no dial.

It had no cord. It didn't need one. 

It began to ring. The sort of noise that was impossible to not acknowledge. 

And then Ariel pointed to it, and told the President he needed to answer it when it called. 

"Who's on the other end?" The President asked.

"Who do you think?" the Backer said, smiling. 

And it was not a kind smile. Not anymore. 

They all left the room, after that, giving Reagan some privacy. And they all looked to one another, already inventing explanations for what they just saw. Already doing their best to reject it. 

All but SPYGOD, who had seen it through an eye that allowed no rejection of the obvious.

("How can you be so invisible? / Give me the nerves to see")

Ever after, either Aaron or Ariel was at the White House, or wherever he went. Ever after, when the phone rang, he answered it. 

Ever after, he would stare into space for some time, and come back with some new answer to whatever question was perplexing them -- sometimes for things that hadn't happened yet, sometimes for things that, now, never would.

Ever after, the White House no longer belonged to the people of America, but to the God they said they were under.

And while some were alright with this, and some ecstatic, some could tell that the weight of Heaven was a terrible burden for their President.

And some decided something should be done about it...

* * *

"Really? You're asking me?" The Negotiator smirks.

"Well, I mean no disrespect, but given your line of work I'd have thought you'd have figured that out by now. In some ways we're not so different.

(A hand held up to deflect wrath.)

"No, don't get upset. Think. 

"We both get what we want by giving others things they want but can't have, or don't think they can get. The trick is knowing what those things are, and how much to ask for them.

"You see?"

(A disappointed smile, most likely just for show. Scripted.)

"Ah, well, maybe it is a hard thing to understand. Even you can only see the world through so many angles.

"How about this, then? Imagine you're a creature of duty. I'm sure you can do that."

(Knowing smile.)

"Now imagine you are immortal, created to fulfill that duty for an eternity. Imagine you have the imagination to think of other things to do, but no opportunity to do them, because you're always busy.

"And imagine that, when you're down here, watching over humans, you gain a vicarious thrill from seeing them go about their free lives. Making mistakes. Having victories. Living and loving all on their own.

"See, that's what they want. Not free will, as they actually do have it. But they want the freedom to try and to fail.

"The luxury of sin."

(A flicker at that word. The blackness becomes visible, just for a second.)

"Oh yes. They love humans for that simple, small thing. The failing people like you try to purge from yourselves to enter Heaven is the one thing that those who live there wish they could do.

"But no. They're on 24/7. Little angel bees, out making the holy honey for the big G. No time to sin. No time to do anything.

"Unless, of course, they could come down here on official business, and yet not be seen..."

(The worm..)

"Oh yes. There's ways to do that, my friend. Many ways."

(... the hook...)

"Are you interested in hearing about them?"

(And one good, hard pull...)

* * *

"Oh, so good to see you, good friend," Ben Franklin says, shaking SPYGOD's hand as he enters a side room he wasn't expecting to stumble into.

He really was just looking for the exit. Or the john. Maybe both.

"Good to see you too, Ben," he says, looking around at things. There are a bunch of scientists in here, all poring over notes and charts, and looking at photographs and videos. There's also some ladies in amusingly-scanty attire, alternating between hanging all over the scientists and serving cocktails off of trays.

A bar in the corner. Anti-communist posters on the walls. Heavy rock playing from a stereo.

(Blue Oyster Cult's last album, he thinks. Not really his thing.)

"Can I offer you a drink?" the Founding Father asks, waving a hand around the room: "I think we're all a little lit up, at this point. That is what you say these days, is it not?"

"It is, and I don't mind if I do," SPYGOD sighs, closing the door behind them: "Truth to tell I could !@#$ing use a whole car full of drinks at this point."

"Yes, I hear things were... not so well, up top?"

"That's putting it !@#$ing mildly," he says, grabbing two drinks from the nearest tray and downing them one after the other: "Hopefully my Second's got the !@#$ figured out, or he's going to have the shortest career in the COMPANY."

Ben laughs for a moment, and then realizes his new guest isn't joking. After that he just has a drink along with him, and nods sagely.

"So what is all this?" SPYGOD asks, looking around: "Tappa Kegga Brew having a careers in science day?"

The portly man laughs, and then shakes his head: "I must give myself credit, my friend. I actually understood that."

"Caught up on a few movies, eh?"

"One could say that. I have also been pooling the graduate students at the nearby colleges for talent! I've found them most refreshing in their youth and enthusiasm."

"Not to mention the looks," SPYGOD snorts, grabbing another drink and walking over to a nearby table. There, the scientists are discussing something about weaponized dreams. A picture of pale, willowy Sphyne is passed around and tapped.

"So?" SPYGOD asks again. It's the sort of tone he takes with people when he doesn't want to have to repeat himself.

"Well, this is sort of top secret, or so they tell me," Ben explains: "But in short? We are working on doing something with the other eight Olympians."

"Something?" SPYGOD asks: "Like what?"

"Well, as you know, not all of them have talents that are directly applicable to a battle with other Strategic Talents. Case in point, as much as I may appreciate the more erotic side of things, well... could you see Rosi in a fight? What would the young lady do, love them to death?"

"S/he does alright," SPYGOD says, watching a rather large, black man discussing a large stack of printouts about Syphon. He's talking about cloning programs. Short-lived armies made for specific battles, needing only DNA, programing, and a mission.

"And then there's the other limitations," Ben sighs: "Apparently Nemesis is proving to be quite bothersome."

"How so?" SPYGOD asks, remembering the last time he ran into the fiery lady. The look she gave him made even him just a little scared.

And what she'd said...

"Well, here's the thing," the Founding Father goes on: "You know the trouble our government has been having with Libya? That fellow who runs things these days is apparently being quite bothersome and warlike. Not far removed from the troubles we had with them in my time-"

"That he has," SPYGOD interrupts: "What of it?"

"Well, someone had the good sense to ask if Nemesis would be willing to kill him. She asked why. So she was told all the things he had done, and when we were done, she said she could only kill him for those crimes if she killed all other heads of state for the same crimes."

SPYGOD cracks a smile, which Ben was clearly not expecting: "Well, good sir, you can imagine how well that went over..."

"Yes I can," SPYGOD says, smiling even wider: "A god-weapon with a conscience and a sense of humor. Must be !@#$ing inconvenient."

"Well, do you have any advice?" Franklin asks: "Given how much time you spend with others like her, perhaps you could talk some sense into her."

"No," he says, grabbing a drink for the road before he heads out: "But let me give you some advice, Ben."

"What would that be, good sir?"

"Stop it," the man says, looking around the room: "Stop this !@#$. All of it. Stop trying to turn Kanaan into a probability bomb. Stop trying to make Sheliast your personal island-sinker. And as for messing around with Hoosk... well, good luck there."

There's a hush over the room, just then. All the scientists look to Ben, who looks to them, and then to their guest: "You do realize we're... well, we are supposed to-"

"Ben, the best thing I ever !@#$ing read in school was you telling people to stop !@#$ing obeying orders and start listening to what you thought was right," SPYGOD says, tapping the portly man's chest: "Take your own advice, Mr. Franklin."

"Sir, I am not accustomed to having my own words turned against me," the founding father says, taking the drink out of his now-unwelcome guest's hands: "And if you cannot be civil-"

"And just so you know, doing this?" SPYGOD says, leaning in close to whisper: "It's not going to !@#$ing save you when the time comes. Trust me on that. If Shift said something, it's going to come true."

That gets him a look of hate and fear so dire it almost breaks his heart. At the very least, it does silence Franklin up, but at a terrible cost. 

So he gets out of there, cursing his tendency to shoot his !@#$ mouth off.

* * *

"I don't like this," the Vice President is saying: "Not one darn bit."

"I agree, sir," SPYGOD says, looking out the window of the limo they're in for this meeting. It's the middle of the day, but yet it's dark as night out there.

It's a COMPANY Car, made for these kinds of meetings. No sound gets out. No light gets in. No one can hear them speak or think.

Total blackout. 

"I've seen that man go right down the tubes the last few years. Ever since the day they put that sword into the floor of the basement."

"He hasn't !@#$ing been himself, no," SPYGOD admits: "It almost looks like he's got a !@#$ limiter in his noggin."

"A what?"

SPYGOD just looks at him: "Come on, sir. You were in charge of the other Company for a hot minute, back in the day. Don't you remember when SQUASH was putting biochemical and hypnotic programming into their agents' brains?"

"I... might have read something about that."

"Well, it's a moot point, now. Making it so you can't !@#$ing think about anything but the mission causes a lot of !@#$ing problems. Turns your !@#$ brains to J-E-L-L-O pudding after a couple months."

"And that's the problem, isn't it?" the man says, looking out the window at whatever SPYGOD was staring at, a moment ago: "In two years, I might be President. Am I just supposed to... I don't know. Kneel down? Become their darn puppet?"

"That might well be the !@#$ plan, provided we're all still around."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that... !@#$, I feel stupid saying this, sir, but do you get the feeling we're being !@#$ing pointed at World War III?"

The man looks at him, and then nods -- very slowly and sadly.

"I do. A lot of reckless things. Very silly things. Well, we could be handling things better. A lot better."

"Agreed. I mean, I !@#$ing hate the commies more than anything, but I don't want it to end with us nuking Moscow. I'll just do damage control until they can overthrow them, same as always."

The Vice President smiles: "A sensible view. You're a more practical man than I took you for, sir."

"So, speaking practically?" SPYGOD asks, leaning forward: "If there was some way for me to get the President out of this !@#$hole he's fallen into, and our country out of this !@#$ing arrangement, would I have your blessing? Seeing as how you're most likely going to be the next President?"

George Herbert Walker Bush smiles.

("Those lips conspire in treachery / To strike in cloak and dagger, see!")

Carefully extends a hand to shake. 

SPYGOD takes it, knowing he may yet live to regret this.

But, for his nation, and a friend, he'll do !@#$ near anything. 

 * * *

"So, I've had a chance to think, since our last conversation," Ben Franklin says, as the Bugatti takes them across the country in -30 seconds. 

(Less relaxed now. More cautious.)

"I think you may just be right, sir. I do not like the direction this is going. Not at all.

"I think we are tampering with things best left alone. And I say that both as a scientist, and a man who, while not always in step with the Lord God, knows enough of the divine to know that one does not merely poke at it with a stick."

(Downshifts, making the journey last longer.)

"I am not certain what direction this may go. I am not entirely certain of my own motives, given how things are.

"But I do know that, when the time comes, and our masters decide they no longer wish to try and rework and remodel these beings, I feel I can have some say in what happens to them.

"And I would very much like your assistance with this, as you alone seem to care for their welfare. 

"If I leave things up to that Dr. Yesterday fellow..."

(A long, cold shudder.)

"Are we agreed, then? When the time comes, let us be one in this, my friend.

"We both owe them much, and I so most of all..."

* * *

Outside the White House, in the Rose garden, SPYGOD lights up a cigarette. He doesn't give a !@#$ who sees, or what they might say. 

Let them all watch.

The situation has been contained and cleaned as best as possible. Second pulled out every stop to make sure it was done so. He was also amazingly contrite about it, but did not offer to resign, even in spite of the casualty lists. 

SPYGOD likes that. This man might be able to hack it after all...

"You know, you really shouldn't smoke out here," someone says to him, not without some humor.

"You think anyone's going to stop me?" SPYGOD snorts, turning to look and see who it is. But the moment he realizes it's Nancy Reagan, he coughs and puts the cigarette out in his hand, and then tosses the smoking butt into a zippered pocket on his suit. 

"Oh, (REDACTED)," she chuckles: "What are we going to do with you?"

"I won't say no to an iced tea."

"Neither would I, normally. But... not today, eh?" she says, taking hold of his arm and letting him walk her around. 

They walk in silence for a time. Her tiny hands can't both wrap around his arm, which amuses them both.

(He likes her touch. It reminds him of his mother.)

"He's not doing well, is he?" he asks, as gently as he can.

"No, he's not," she says, trying not to stumble in her words: "He's been having nightmares, now."

"Oh?" SPYGOD asks: "What kind?"

"He wakes up screaming. He says 'It's coming.' But when he comes to, he can't remember what. He just knows that he's terribly afraid of what he saw."

"How often?"

"Almost every night. He used to be able to just shake them off, but now... he's not a young man, anymore, (REDACTED). He's later to rise and unsteady. And that phone... every time he gets off of it I think he's got another grey hair."

He nods again: "Nancy, I have to ask you to ask me something."

"That's a really strange way to put it."

"It is, but..." he stops, and turns around to look at her: "I might be able to help him. I might be able to end all this. But it's going to take some doing. It's also going to take some... drastic things. Maybe even bad things."

"And you want to know if I'm okay with it."

"Yes," he says, trying to find the strength to look in her eyes as he says this: "I can't promise anything, right now. I'm still looking into it."

"But...?"

"But I've seen and heard enough in my time to know that something like this? It's... well, excuse my French, Nancy, but it's not going to !@#$ing end well. Not at all."

She looks at him for a moment, as if she was going to scold him for his potty-mouth. But she just nods, looks askance, and then looks back up: "The man I married made a bad deal with people he thought he could trust. He told me he did this to save America, no matter the cost. But I don't think we're saving anything. I think we're just marching faster to the end."

"I don't know what I can do about that," SPYGOD admits: "But I might be able to save him."

"Then please do it," she says, looking off to the Oval Office windows: "Bring me my husband back, (REDACTED). If you still can, please do it."

She doesn't cry. He gives her that much. 

And neither does he. At least not today. 

* * *

Speed is the game in the shadow of kings
Where the company of angels fly
They appear at the crossroads at once in the future
Clad in the darkness on the highways of night
With no love ... from the past

(SPYGOD is listening to Shadow of California (Blue Oyster Cult) and having a Ghost King)

12/28/12 - The Master and Mother!@#$er - Epilogue

Let's swim to the moon, uh huh
Let's climb through the tide
Surrender to the waiting worlds
That lap against our side 

Moonlight Drive - The Doors (1967)

* * *

How best to describe what happened next?

It was as if the world had been holding its breath for two years, afraid of being heard by something terrible that had suddenly appeared. And then, just as suddenly, it could finally exhale, and take a deep, relieved breath of sweet, clean air.

The terror was over. The horror was gone. And the world would never know why or how.

True, some lasting damage had been done. The undead swarms created by the Red Queen stayed in the world, in spite of what had happened to her, and went on to cause numerous problems throughout Eastern Europe. Likewise, a number of demon-machines that were active when their misshapen master went back The Pit were also left behind, and either found new masters or went feral. The Holy See would never be quite the same again, thanks to certain obscene suggestions made over the telephone, and any number of strange, occult experiments would come back to bite the Soviets in the !@#$ for years to come.

(There was also a rash of dream-poisonings, some time later, when an overlooked pallet of bootleg Russian vodka was unearthed in Chicago, of all places)

But by and large, things returned to normal.

The barrier between Earth and Hell became strong, once more. Moscow no longer had a blood-red etheric glow, almost visible to the naked eye. Rogue magicians empowered by the negative vibes lost their mojo, would-be diabolists no longer enjoyed an unfair advantage, and the so-called Church of Satan (formed the same night the Supreme Six came through) lost any real sinister edge it may have developed as certain mysterious members dropped out of sight.

The shadows became less ominous. The light became that much more golden. The sunrise was truly gorgeous, once more, and the stars shone brighter at night.

SQUASH continued to be a problem, of course. There were more thaumathematical hi-jinx, ridiculous attempts at spiritual sabotage, and the like. But, by and large, it had had its last hurrah; it would never attempt anything that grand and dangerous ever again, either because the Kremlin simply would not allow it, or because its now-emasculated leader lacked the conviction.

Of the remaining members of the "Super-Lucky Six" -- as they would later call their fortunate band -- they maintained some degree of contact. Dr. Krwi and SPYGOD became better allies, and then friends, however tempered with tough love. Jim Morrison also aided the COMPANY on a few notable occasions, mostly involving strange magic and large parties. It's said that he and John were seen together in New York City, now and again -- talking philosophy in dark clubs or just tramping it up in the worse ends of town.

Doctor Power, on the other hand, remained somewhat aloof. He'd help SPYGOD out on a case or two, given his work with the Freedom Force, but wouldn't stick around long thereafter. He was also notoriously bad about taking phonecalls, much less answering them.

In fact, on the one, very memorable occasion that the other four got together, late in 1970, to stop something else from coming through into our plane, he was strangely nowhere to be found. It was as if there was something about what the six of them had done that he wanted to avoid revisiting at all costs.

Or maybe something in the future was concerning him.

* * *

July 3, 1971
Paris, France

It's early in the morning, and the Lizard King is getting ready to walk on down the hall.

He stares at the ceiling in his bath, his eyes unfocussed, seeing further than he should. His mouth is on fire with the blood he's just vomited up, and his nose still aches from all the heroin he snorted, this morning.

Pamela's in the other room, asleep. She begged him to call a doctor, the last time he puked, but he told her no. He said to just go to bed and sleep -- he'd join her, soon.

Of course, that was a lie.

He's known for some time how this song was going to end. He saw it before, down in that weird, domed room under Moscow. Every time the Demon Magician, Voland, threw the red fire at him, this moment in time became more certain a thing. More real.

It was just a question of how he would get from there to here, was all.

Not that he'd really been all that careful, between then and now. How could he? There was so much to do, the last few years. All those fights against the darkness, all those struggles against menaces too weird and insane to deal with.

(All those problems with the image his handlers helped him make...)

No. He can't think about that, now. He can't hate poor Ray-Ray or John, or anyone. There's no time for hate, now.

Not now that it's almost over.

He's known for for some time that the end was near -- little hints, here and there, that the world was beginning to reject him. The look of his bloated self in the store windows of Paris. His troubles with breathing, or moving. The spasms and the hiccups.

The blood he kept spitting up between drinks.

Even today, out with his old friend, Alain, that mustachioed demon had been mocking him. There'd been a laughing man with a crazy mustache on the way to the restaurant, laughing as he walked on down the road. There was the chance forming of hideous, prophetic words from noise when they went back out for another drink. And there'd been that leering face from that !@#$ movie he's watched with his woman, earlier in the night. "Pursued," it was called.

(Of course it would be, wouldn't it?)

"You know what you have lost here, Lizard King," Voland had sneered, just three years ago: "I'll see you in The Pit yet."

But the joke was on him, now wasn't it?

He wasn't put on this world to just die and go up or down. He was put here to go across, over and over again -- time to time, place to place, maybe even world to world. He was put here to be here when he was needed, and then charged with moving on when it was time.

And now -- now that his body was tired and used up, and someplace else needed him more than our world did -- that time was fast approaching.

So no. No hate. No regrets. No should have, would have, could have beens. No fear. No tears. Nothing to look forward to, here. Nothing to hold him back, anymore.

Nothing but the promise that his soul made, all those years ago, when he was young and fresh and had no idea of the great secret the world was keeping from him. Not until that trip from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, and the dead Indians on the road.

Not until he saw his life reflected in the death of someone else, and the endless spirit came to claim him, adding his face to the ancient gallery.

A line from that movie echoes in his mind -- almost something he might have written, himself, once upon a time.

"Out back there was some cattle bones. All of a sudden I couldn't breathe, and then as I walked around the side, I came upon some unmarked graves. If that house was me, what part of me was buried in those graves?"

No part, really. This failing vessel is only flesh. There is nothing here to take with him, where he is going, except maybe a small remembrance of times gone by, and friends he spent those times with. The ones his future selves will remember. The ones his past selves knew were coming.

The moment, singular and eternal, that no demon can even hope to occlude.

So Jim Morrison looks across the worlds, and smiles at what he sees there. Another boy, looking his way, with eyes just like him. A man-child with a mind ready for the experience of the lifetime, and a soul empty and waiting for a promise.

His face ready to take its rightful place in the gallery.

Jim shuts his eyes. He breathes in. He breathes out.

And then he walks on down the hall. 

* * *

There is no question that Colonel Bulgakov is dead -- and good riddance to him -- but what is not readily known is exactly how he died, or when.

It's generally accepted that he died at some point during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It may have been in the early years, after the Soviets finally decided they'd had enough of SQUASH, and left them out to dry. It may have been near the end, as its former super-agent Boris Yeltsin -- who'd made certain they were no longer available at the table -- became a hero during the attempted coup.

As for exactly what happened? Well, one must realize that, in all such matters, truth is highly subjective. There are any number of accepted stories, all of which carry the requisite SQUASH poetry. And there are any number of reasons why this, that, or the other theory is more likely than its cohorts.

And one overriding reason why none of them really work. 

So, in spite of how amusing it would be to believe that he was dragged screaming and alive off to The Pit after a final summoning gone wrong, we should remember that he was too good a thaumathematician to have that happen to him.

(We should also remember that, following the debacle of 1968, he had someone else do the summoning for him.)

And, in spite of the deliciousness of believing that, the night SQUASH's replacement came fully online, he was crushed under several tons of rock and concrete when the Beehive was destroyed without warning, we should also remember that he had any number of escape routes, and means to avoid serious injury.

(Plus, if anyone could have crawled out of a cave-in and come back, it would have been him.)

And while one can't help but be amused at the notion that whatever dark bargain he made in order to escape death, all those years ago, just ran out of time, and he had to pay the bill at last, those who knew him have often said that was never a barrier. In fact, they say the deal had actually run out some time before, but he'd always found a way to extend his stay on the Earth by a decade or so.

(There always were so many young and foolish thaumathematicians, ever-so-willing to assist the Colonel in a "late night experiment.")

So no. None of those stories are adequate or sufficient. None of them account for the fact that, though he could be a stupid fool at times, and so arrogant that he had no idea when he was committing the most disastrous of mistakes until well past the point of no return, he could always find some way to get out of it. Even if that escape was aided by his enemies, if only by accident.

But the fact remains: Colonel Bulgakov is dead. One can only hope that he died in a manner befitting the amount of woe and ruin he caused the world -- especially his own country, when all was said and done.

And good riddance to all of that.

* * *

John vanished, as they always figured he kind of would.

It was back in 1997, during that one weird thing some people call a Crisis, and others call The Opportunity. He was helping contain the structural reality damage in Trenton, of all places, and he stepped out of sight to do something. He must have done it, because the repairs held, but he never stepped back, either.

No last words. No goodbyes. No cryptic remarks. Just the utter absence of a man.

(Not even Wayfinder could locate him. He said it was as though he'd just never been. And that spooked the old !@#$ like you wouldn't believe.)

SPYGOD's dealt with a couple other Grey Men since then, all wearing the same kind of weird, film-grey coats. None of them care to say where John is. When he asks them, they just ask "which John?" and then smile.

(Bastards)

But every so often, when he's alone or maudlin or both, SPYGOD gets the feeling that John's nearby, somehow. Even with the Chandra Eye, he can't see him, but he can feel him, somehow. And he can feel he's telling him to get a !@#$ grip on himself, because nothing ever got solved by whining about a !@#$ thing, now did it?

And he would be !@#$ing right. 
 

* * *

11/4/2012
Rezscow, Poland

The sad thing was that, if he'd just called Doctor Krwi at his !@#$ safehouse when he realized he needed him, this could have been avoided.

Around the end of October, SPYGOD realized he really needed to talk to his vampire hunter ally. He'd been avoiding it for a time, because they'd had a serious misunderstanding towards the end of the Imago Occupation.

(In other words, SPYGOD had been a !@#$ing jerk, and Krwi had called him on it)

But needs must as the devil drives, as they say. So he'd started calling him, using the line he'd had before the Invasion. But he wasn't picking up.

So he got his people on trying to roust him from whatever hole he'd dug himself into. He'd made threats and promises, and delivered on some of both. And his subordinates scurried this way and that, searching for a man who was very difficult to find when he did not want to be found.

He'd been using his cellphone, which could usually get him anywhere, but that cellphone had been burned some time ago. But there was another number, somewhere in SPYGOD's possession, that led to a safehouse in scenic Rezscow, where he liked to hide out between killing runs.

And if SPYGOD had just called the old man there, when he'd realized he needed his help, Doctor Krwi would probably still be alive.

But he didn't. And on the 4th of November, SPYGOD got a call from one of his COMPANY Agents, out in Poland, telling him to get on a transport and come to south-eastern Poland as soon as he could.

He needed his boss to come and tell him if the sorry, bloated, and hideously-mangled body he'd found in what appeared to be a vampire hunter's stronghold was, in fact, the man he'd been looking for.

Sadly, it was him. Doctor Krwi had been dead for at least a week, maybe longer. And he hadn't died easy or well from the looks of things.

He'd died slowly, and in pain -- a lot of pain, from the looks of him. One wouldn't expect any less, given the number of horrible and sadistic enemies the old man had racked up over several decades worth of fighting the bloodsuckers. Indeed, he'd often joked that, when they finally got him, he'd be lucky if they just tortured him to death instead of giving him the bite, just to get revenge.

(He'd also said something about having enough garlic in his veins to marinate a whole herd of cattle for stew, which was how he planned to avoid that threat.)

But that wasn't what got to SPYGOD -- seeing the man he'd called ally, then friend, then pain in the !@#$ in that sorry state. That wasn't what made him go insane with anger and tear the place apart. That wasn't what made him burn it to the ground when he was done, and stomp back to his transport ready to kill the next person, place, or thing that even looked like it was going to look at him funny.

No. It was the fact that, when he looked at what was left of the old man, he realized he'd been raped. To death.

And then he realized by who.

He didn't want to go into details. He didn't want to tell anyone what he knew, for fear of word getting out. The trial had already gotten that cat out of the bag, but he didn't need anyone to know just how active the culprit was in the world.

All he could do was give the old man the dignity of making sure his body could in no way, shape, or form be revived by his true enemies. It's what he would have wanted, and all he could have done for him.

But as they flew back to America, and every mile on the way, SPYGOD was forced to realize that he knew. He knew, !@#$ it.

He knew that, if he'd called the old man, they would have talked about this little problem with what he'd been feeling in the White House, lately.

If they'd talked about the little problem, Dr. Krwi would have known that he was in America, and not Poland.

If he'd known he was in America, and not Poland, he wouldn't have opened his door up and let his murderer in, because he would have known that something was fishy.

And if he hadn't opened his door up and let his murderer in, he wouldn't have spent the last however many hours of his life being !@#$ed in every single hole he had, plus a few more that his attacker decided to make with that blessed sword the old man used on vampires.

Every mile on the way home, he realizes this. It makes him sick. He tries to drink it away but it doesn't help. He wants to smash things but then he'll just have to swim home, and haul his Agents besides.

All he can do is tell himself that he's done being careless, now. He's done with failing to anticipate this danger that's out there, loose in the world.

And when he finally finds his Alter-Earther, he's going to do things to him that will make what he did to Dr. Krwi look like an overly-firm handshake.

Oh yes. He will.

* * *

 

There's also the matter about a conversation that took place between Doctor Power and SPYGOD, not too long after SPYGOD found out what happened to Doctor Krwi. In fact, it took place after a very fateful and tragic Thanksgiving at the White House, when SPYGOD had to deal with the source of that nasty feeling he'd wanted Doctor Krwi's help with. 

"Dealing" meant bringing in a special gun, which resulted in a very unfortunate death. It also meant that whatever political and personal currency he'd cultivated with the President of the United States of America -- both during and after the Invasion -- was completely gone.

And it also meant that, given how Doctor Power was responsible for what happened, SPYGOD had no !@#$ing compunctions whatsoever about making good on his long-standing threat to take Doctor Power's namesake away from him.

It was quite an impressive conversation, really, but there was only one way it could end. And that was with SPYGOD striding out of the Doctor's sanctum with a former superhero in tow, and telling him how and where to get help for his serious problems.

Not the greatest end to one of the few remaining members of both the Liberty Patrol and Freedom Force, one might say. But it wasn't really his end, either. Just another serious bump in a lifetime full of them.

That is, however, another story for another day.

* * *

As for the Hell Blazer -- no one's entirely certain what the entity formerly known by that name is doing, down in The Pit. 

He has not made contact, ever, and he does not answer when called. Not even Doctor Power could ever summon him up. 

It's almost as if he didn't want to talk to anyone. 

Some say he's biding his time until he can break the entire operation. Some say he's gone bad, like he said he would, and that the increase in vampire attacks is his doing. But you can never trust Demons, as they tend to tell you exactly what you want to hear.

SPYGOD still keeps his gun handy, just in case.

* * *

There's also the other four members of the Supreme Six to consider, down there in The Pit.

They are not happy demons, those four. They scream and howl at the barrier between worlds, scrabbling to get out and away. They dream of atrocities and grand unmakings. They promise pain and pleasure, knowledge and experience.

And they would burn the world, if they only had another chance to get out and play.

Will they ever have it? Who can say? A year doesn't go by that some !@#$head with more old books than sense doesn't try to raise them from their prison, the better to curry their favor. Sometimes these idiots even manage to raise one of them, though not fully and never for long.

But so long as the Hell Blazer doesn't care to move, and Behemot is stuck in our world, calling up the whole gang to effect a great and terrible change just is not going to happen. At all.

But still they try, because they're greedy and short-sighted and mad and stupid. And still they die, because they almost always get Voland, himself, and he's still really !@#$ed off about losing out on Morrison. And still nothing really happens to change the balance between good and evil, light and dark, and up and down in our world.

Hopefully it stays that way. We have enough problems as it is.

* * *

And what of Behemot, then?

The demon cat has lived in Neo York City, with SPYGOD, ever since the events of 1968. He drinks between three and five bottles of high-test, liver-rotting vodka a day, and goes through a can of high-quality cat food every so often, when he remembers he needs to eat, too. He used to spend most of his days sleeping on an AK-47, but when that was lost SPYGOD got him a better gun, and now he sleeps on that, instead.

Once a member of the Supreme Six, he is now known as Bee-Bee, as his owner won't have "Commie" spoken in his house.  If he misses being a prince of Hell, he doesn't show it. He seems content to laze around, and seemingly aspires only to stay drunk, or maybe get it on when his biological urges send him off to tomcat.

He will not come when called. He tolerates no petting or belly rubs except once in a great while, and then only from SPYGOD.  And no one !@#$s with that cat.

No one at all. 

(SPYGOD is listening to The Best of Tchaikovsky and having a number of drinks for absent friends)

12/28/12 - The Master and Mother!@#$er - pt 9

Now the entire herd had begun to wheel wider and faster along the bluff 

and the outermost ranks swung centrifugally over the escarpment 

row on row wailing and squealing and above this 

the howls and curses of the drovers that now upreared

 in the moil of flesh they tended and swept with dust 

had begun to assume satanic looks with their staves and wild eyes 

as if they were no true swineheards but disciples of darkness 

got among these charges to herd them to their doom.

 Cormac McCarthy -- Outer Dark (1968)

* * *

Moscow -- The Beehive
April 30th, 1968

And so it begins -- six against six, for the fate of the world.

Holy swords are swung against thrice-cursed spells and demon machines. Reshaped reality pitted against words that can destroy it. Spells cast against fate, fists raised against fear.

Life itself fighting against the darkness that would devour it, whole.

The battle rages throughout the Beehive -- its entire structure impregnated with the soul-gutting foulness of Hell. Its combatants hack, slash, and fire up and down hallways lined with sputtering meat-machines. They crash through walls slick with liquid darkness, tear up floors spattered with still-twitching human remnants.

With each step forward they bring back the light, but when they lose ground the darkness multiplies.

As the fight rages -- unheard, unseen -- its echoes bleed over into the world around it. Reality warps and bends under the weight of their titanic forces. The ether shakes, the heavens tremble, the walls between the realms go up and down.

And in the spaces between, dangerous things that don't belong in each others' company begin to mingle.

Ideas no one should ever have slip into the world like carrion birds, perching upon fresh minds to peck away at their goodness and decency.  Good people dream of bad things. Bad people dream of things so terrifying that they start awake lest they lose themselves in pure evil.

And those who do not care to wake go on to do terrible things, indeed.

The battle rages, and time ticks by. The hour draws close to Midnight, and all that fight there know that this conflict must be settled by then. Should the forces of light and life win by that point, all this darkness will be banished by the dawn.

But should their opposite number hang on -- even just until the stroke of the Witching Hour -- the world will be theirs for at least another year.

And what a terrible year that will be. 

* * *

The celebrated warrior-poet sings as he dances against their well-dressed, mustachioed leader -- his sword deflecting the demon's terrible, skull-shaped blasts of soul-warping energies. He laughs and gambols about the monster, ignoring the thing's threats as he slowly closes the space between them, ever-careful not to let the sickly red light touch his skin.

But with each step he gains, the radiance of the thing's power begins to weigh down on him. Before long, he realizes that he is seeing something else, there in the red-lit battlefield. He is seeing himself in those blasts -- older and wasted, his usefulness gone and his life a mockery of what it had once been.

Jim Morrison sees his own death in those spells, clearer and clearer all the time. And it takes every inch of will and power he has to ignore it and keep on going.

Especially since he knows that, with each burst of malefic power the demon throws his way, the more likely it is that this sad vision will come true.

* * *

Elsewhere, John steps in and out of reality as the wide-mouthed, motley demon screams salvo after salvo at him, destroying and reshaping the world as he goes.

One shout, and the wall where John stepped into a moment before is now bleeding and covered in filth. Another, and things that have no name in any living civilization erupt from the air and come to take him back with them, into the liquid dark.

Yet another, and the ground where he was about to stride is a deep pit filled with spikes, monstrous snakes and vermin slithering in the wet, corpse-strewn ground below.

He stays one step ahead of each attack, John does, but it's all he can do to defend himself. This Koroviev doesn't seem to run out of noise, and is beginning to anticipate his moves. Sooner or later, he'll catch him in mid-stride and nail him with a tricky reversal.

And then he'll be done, and that will be that.

Still, John didn't get to where he was without knowing a thing or two about a thing or three. He's beginning to think he can see the flaw in this !@#$ demon's M.O. He's beginning to think he might be able to beat him.

He's beginning to think he can win through, provided he's willing to risk losing everything.

* * *

Meanwhile, Dr. Krwi is having the time of his life.

The wall-eyed, fang-mawed fool he's been accidentally pitted against is actually scared of him. Azazelo keeps calling up machine after machine, invention after invention, mechanical being after mechanical being. And every single weird, walking contraption that he sends out to deal with this angry, screaming Polish vampire hunter is being sliced to pieces or shot apart.

There was a case, not long ago, when Krwi had to go after some aging, decrepit vampire queen in her castle, down in Italy. The old hag had a taste for necromancy, and had ensorcelled an entire graveyard full of old, moldering bones into her service. So there were skeletons everywhere on her estate -- standing guard, disguised as statues, or wandering the halls like silent courtesans, awaiting an audience with their betters.

Such a sight might have been enough to keep the authorities far away, for fear of their souls. But to a man who routinely fights things that could turn him into one of them with one, solid bite, a legion of clattering, slow-moving bones was no more threatening that being mauled by a small puppy.

The memory of crashing through those skeletons -- one swift, sharp swing of his sword at a time -- is coming back to Krwi, now. He laughs at this paltry and feeble attempt to remove him from the world. And he relishes the thought that, once he gets to the end of this demon's stockpile of twisted, demonic machines, he will take the beast's head from his shoulders just as easily. 

(And, not long after, he'll find a way to do the same with that English revenant, who robbed him of his true target.)

* * *

"Traitor!" Hella screams, slashing at the Hell Blazer's leather armor with her claws as he grapples with her atop his demon motorcycle, careering through the circular, black stone hallways surrounding the central dome.

"!@#$!" he shrieks back, trying to punch her in the face with a flaming fist.

"Idiot!" she replies, ducking and trying to reach up for his heart.

"!@#$!" he swears, laughing as he hand breaks against something under his armor.

"I should never have made that deal with you, ungrateful whelp!" she howls, stepping backwards as her hand knits itself back together.

"I should never have made it with you, you withered, fang-faced tramp!' he proclaims, stepping forward and pointing an accusing finger in her direction.

"You would have made it with someone, you spoiled creature!"

"They'd have served me straight!" he shouts, running forward to punch her with a fiery fist: "Better than you, anyway!"

"Oh, yes," she sneers, ducking down and kicking him in the crotch so hard he flies off the back of his bike: "Just tell yourself that, you sorry thing. Some other demon would have given you a better deal, surely."

"Any other demon would have been pleased with what I've done!" he shouts, going down the back, whipping around the bottom, and then leaping back up the front, the better to kick her in the back of the head: "Any other demon would have appreciated what I had to offer!"

"Any other demon..." she says, putting her head back on straight: "Would have wiped their !@#$ with your soul after !@#$ing all over your sorry little contract!"

"I gave you my life, my soul, my servants!"

"You gave me nothing!" she spits, pointing her finger in his face: "And in return, I gave you the opportunity to impress me. And what have you done with it? Become some kind of ridiculous hero out of spite? Aided our enemies in order to get revenge?"

"You betrayed me!" 

"No," she insists, standing her ground: "You betrayed yourself! You were a !@#$ed fool who !@#$ed himself to join into my service, but was too eager for power to read the fine print. Just like every other idiot who sells himself to us!"

"You..." He starts to say, but falters. The flames in his hands die down. He steps back as if reeling.

"I'm sorry, does the truth hurt?" she sneers, clearly amused to see him having second thoughts: "You have no right to be angry with me, late Lord of Puddock Manor. You are unworthy of Hell, and not welcome in Heaven.

"You are pathetic, and I will deal with you the way I should have done a long time ago!"

And then she lunges at him, teeth suddenly so large that they can't quite fit into her mouth.

* * *

Within the dome, SPYGOD and Behemot rest on the floor, coming back around to full consciousness.

They tried, really. They did. You have to give them that, at least.

They fired bullets at each other until their guns were empty, and then they healed up and went at it again. When they were out of bullets they blew chunks out of each other with explosives, but then they healed up and ran out of grenades. And then they went to sharp objects -- knives versus claws and fangs -- but no matter much much they cut, slashed, gouged, and ripped open, they would just heal up.

They were at it for what seemed hours. They tried everything they could think of to kill one another. But no matter what they did, nothing worked. 

Nothing at all. 

SPYGOD gets up and winces, realizing his guts are back where they belong. The cat snorts and rolls over, just sort of looking at him as his face heals up and resumes its previous shape.

They stare at each other for a second, and then sigh.

SPYGOD pulls out a flask. Inside of it is vodka. He pulls a bit, and then, after a second's hesitation, passes it over to Behemot.

"I think we're gonna have to call this a draw, cat," he says.

"Poshel na khuy," the cat mutters, but takes the vodka anyway, soon finding it to his liking. 

So they pass it back and forth and get !@#$ed up. At some point, the demon cat winds up in SPYGOD's lap, purring. Somehow he's not surprised by that, or the fact that he starts petting him. 

Somehow, it just feels right.

* * *

"Are you done, yet?" Abbadon asks, still just standing there with his arms crossed, uncaring as ever.

"You'll... have to pardon me," Doctor Power says, wiping the tears from his eyes: "I mean... I knew. I did know. She told me as much when we made this deal. But..."

"But it's one thing to hear it from her, and another thing to hear it from someone else," the demon finishes the thought.

"Yes. Yes, it is."

"You should have thought of that earlier," Abbadon says, not caring to scold: "All those plans. All those schemes. All those deals you made and broke. Didn't you think they would catch up with you?"

"I didn't think that far in advance," the magician admits: "I always thought there was a way out of it."

"No," the grey demon says: "The only way to win the Game of Hell is not to play. You should have known that. You didn't listen."

"So what can I do?" he asks, looking at the demon: "There has to be some way-"

"Would you ask me for help, then?" the demon asks, turning to look the magician in the face, his dark glasses reflecting the panicking man's red-eyed features: "Would you sell yourself to me, over her? Would you hope that I would be less demanding in the here and now? More giving of power and knowledge? Less horrible, when the time comes?"

"... would you?"

And Abbadon laughs, full and gloriously. As he does his glasses fall from their perch on his nose, and Doctor Power can see what he has for eyes. 

It almost makes him sick.

"No, you fool," the demon says once he composes himself: "I wouldn't take you at all. The games of the others are of little consequence to me. I am what I do, now and forever, and that is enough. I need no servants. I need no souls.

"And you have nothing to offer, except a rivalry with someone I don't care to anger."

Doctor Power opens his mouth, and then closes it. He turns, shaking his head.

"You are !@#$ed, Eben," the demon says, smiling and putting his glasses back up where they belong: "You can use your powers however you'd care to. You can be a hero or a villain. You could even go beyond such titles if you want, or have the imagination to do it. 

"But you made a deal with the best Hell had to offer you at the time, and now you're bound to it. Accept it. You'll be happier."

"There has to be some way...." the man mutters, looking down as his allies fight their separate battles: "There has to be some way!"

And the grey-faced demon smiles and says nothing, knowing how much more silence will hurt than words.

But then something rips through that silence, and they both know that the battle has just ended.

* * *

"The !@#$?" SPYGOD shouts, jumping up as the world reforms itself around him, changing back into the great, domed room of the Beehive. Behemot jumps off his lap and walks over to where Voland stands, dazed and uncertain. 

"I think we have won through," Dr. Krwi says, sheathing his sword and looking around as his adversary slumps to the floor, clearly weakened.

"We have," Morrison agrees, making his own weapon go away and making a silly face at Voland, who doesn't care to reply in kind.

"About !@#$ time," John says, walking over to where Koroviev lies -- his mouth a wide, distended thing -- and kicks him in the teeth. The demon whirls around in a swift circle, turning inside out, and then returns to where he was, looking dazed and confused.

"I didn't know you could !@#$ing do that," SPYGOD says.

"You'd be !@#$ surprised what I can't do, you get me !@#$ mad enough," the old man says, pulling out a cigarette. Morrison's about to offer to light it when it lights itself, and the old man takes one !@#$ of a long drag.

"Well done," Abaddon says, applauding the victors as he and Doctor Power return from wherever they've been all this time.

"You traitor," Voland curses, weakly, no longer able to stand up: "I knew you'd side with them..."

"I side with no one," the grey demon insists, not seeming to be depowered at all: "I simply do not care."

"My god," Doctor Power says, looking at who's there and who's not: "I think that it must have been our English friend who struck the winning blow."

"It must be," Azazello says, weeping into his hat: "I can't !@#$ing sense my lovely gel anywhere."

"And yet I can still smell her evil," Dr. Krwi insists, looking around.

"I am not commenting on that," Morrison says, laughing.

"This isn't funny," Doctor Power says, looking around: "It's a minute to Midnight. Who's won?"

And then there is a magnificent screaming, as if a rude, unshaped piece of metal was given a voice and then thrust into a white-hot furnace.

A section of the curved wall breaks open as though it were nothing but cardboard. The second it does a red and black machine rips through it, its path on fire behind it. The demon motorcycle whirls around the central dais, with its weird, human machinery, and encircles it in a wall of flame. 

And then it cruises over to where the others stand, revealing its lone passenger: a vision in thick, red leather armor, its helmet a baroque, screaming skull.

"Is that you, English?" SPYGOD asks as the rider gets off the bike.

"It is I," the Hell Blazer says, his voice more echoing than before: "The fight is over. We have won."

"But how?" Doctor Power asks, looking at him with something approaching fear: "What did you do?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Morrison asks, chuckling as he walks up to get a better look: "He shook hands with the demon, man."

"You became her," Dr. Krwi says, unsheathing his sword: "You have joined the ranks of the enemy!"

"Don't be !@#$ing stupid," SPYGOD says, about to go for his gun but then realizing none of them are loaded, anymore.

"No, the excitable pollack is right," the revenant admits, taking off his helmet: "She got the upper hand and did what comes naturally. But that was her last mistake."

As he removes the helmet, all eyes open wide.  His once-wasted features are gone, and in their place is the image of the man he once was: cruelly handsome, terribly compelling.

And as pale as the driven snow, with red-in-black eyes and a mouth full of fangs.

"It turns out that a demon vampire can't feed on an undead creature she's made herself without losing something in the bargain," he explains, smiling a little: "As she fed on me, I fed on her, and before long I gained the upper hand. By then she was too far gone to stop, and, well... here we are."

"You lie," Voland hisses weakly, still unbelieving.

"No, it's no trick, Voland. I am her, and she is me. I could have told her this would happen, but I guess she never read the fine print."

"So what the !@#$ does that mean?" SPYGOD asks, putting a hand on Krwi's shoulder to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid.

"It means we've won, sort of," Doctor Power says, pointing out how the meat machines are falling apart: "Their hold over things is slipping. The damage is reversing itself. By the dawn, there won't be anything left to show they were ever here."

"Thank the man Jesus," John says.

"So what now?" Krwi hisses: "Are we just going to let them go?"

"It would be the best !@#$ thing," John says: "We're not powerful enough to destroy a single !@#$ one of them. We've played the game and won. Best we can do is let them leave the board."

"But they will return again!" Krwi insists: "Sooner or later, they'll be back! We cannot let this happen to the world, again!"

"Would you challenge us, then?" Voland asks from where he lies on the floor: "To do that, you would have to enter The Pit, itself. You would have to see us as we are, and fight against us while we are most powerful, and you are least significant.

"Do you think you can do that, little man?"

Krwi's about to say something stupid, but before he can Morrison steps in front of him and shushes him: "I don't think that's in the cards for anyone, tonight. Game over. All go home."

"But what about next time?" John says: "I hate to admit it, but the hunter's got himself a !@#$ point. Some !@#$ fool will probably call them up again, and then we'll be back in it, again."

"Well, we've !@#$ing got him on their big !@#$ team, now," SPYGOD says, indicating the Hell Blazer: "They can't have a Supreme Six if there's a !@#$ing dissenter in the ranks, now can they?"

At that, Voland starts laughing. It's not a pleasant sound.

"And just what the !@#$ is so !@#$ funny, you sorry magician?" John asks. 

"You didn't read the fine print, either," Abbadon says, indicating Hell Blazer: "You. Will you tell them, or shall I?"

"The problem with that," the Hell Blazer says: "Is that Krwi was more right than he knows. I didn't just take her energy. I have become her. For all intents and purposes, I am now the Lord of the Undead."

"The Queen is gone, all hail the Red King," Doctor Power muses: "And how long before... well..."

"Before we're enemies?" the revenant finishes the sentence: "It's... well, let's just say it's taking all my concentration to keep from doing what is quickly becoming the obvious thing. The sooner we leave, the better."

And things get a little silent after that.

"Wait," SPYGOD says, looking at Behemot, who's busy licking his !@#$hole: "I've got an idea."

"You can't be serious," Doctor Power says, looking at the cat and the superspy: "That thing... it's deadly dangerous."

"What are you suggesting?" Abbadon asks.

"Collateral," SPYGOD says, picking up the cat and cradling in its arms: "You got one of our people, we'll take one of yours. No more Supreme Six."

"There's no way to do that!" Voland shouts: "We come and go as one-"

"Actually, now that this has happened," John says, indicating the Hell Blazer: "I think we got ourselves a !@#$ window when some of the rules can get lost."

"What do you say, cat?" SPYGOD asks, looking at the fuzzy beast: "Sleep in a former weapon of mass destruction? Fight Communism? Have all the vodka you can drink?"

Behemot looks up at him, and then meows. A few of them laugh, a few don't.

Then, with what little strength they have, Doctor Power and John perform the magic necessary to make it happen, and a few other things besides. This keeps them quite busy until the dawn, during which time the others keep a close eye on the demons to make certain they don't do anything rash.

And, during which time, Dr. Krwi can't stop looking at the new Red King, and wonder if this wasn't somehow his plan all along. 

* * *

"About time," John says, looking towards the eastern side of the Beehive: "!@#$ sun's a coming out. It's morning in Russia."

"And that means you all need to hit the road," Morrison says, holding out his hands to the demons: "Just as we were all getting to know one another, too!"

"Spare us the cynicism," Voland says, already starting to fade: "You know what you have lost here, Lizard King. I'll see you in The Pit yet."

"Ah, !@#$ off," SPYGOD snorts, watching as they slowly slide away, and relieved to see that the kitty in his arms is staying firm and solid (and asleep).

"No final words, then?" Doctor Power asks, looking at Abaddon as he does.

"Hell awaits," the grey demon says, smiling.

"A good battle," the Hell Blazer says, walking towards SPYGOD as he strides to join his vanishing companions: "Good companions, too. I do not think I could have asked for anything else."

"When next we meet?" Krwi says, not looking in his direction: "It will be as enemies, and I will kill you."

"You will never see me again," Hell Blazer says, quickly handing something over to SPYGOD while no one else sees: "And be grateful for that."

Krwi turns to accost him, but he's already gone. So are the others. No one else is in the Beehive but a stockpile of  barely-alive thaumathematicians -- slowly coming back to life now that they no longer have an obligation to be flesh machines -- and Colonel Bulgakov, now whole again, but quite insane. 

"I will kill you all," he hisses from his wheelchair, too weak to do anything more than threaten: "Somehow, one way or another... all of you will die..."

"I think this is where we leave," Morrison says, gesturing to the nearest wall: "Care to follow me on a Moonlight Drive?"

"You first," John says, chuckling: "And when we get there, you are buying."

"!@#$ straight," Morrison says, locking an arm with the man and wandering between worlds. Doctor Power heads after him, visibly shaken by something, and Doctor Krwi follows close behind, cursing that he didn't bring just one more gun.

As for SPYGOD, he considers what his former ally has given him: the heavy, black revolver with the inverted crucifix dangling from the butt, its weight strangely comfortable in his hands.

("For the next time," he'd whispered as he'd handed it over: "Call it more collateral.")

"Hey, !@#$head," SPYGOD says, aiming it at Colonel Bulgakov with one arm while cradling Behemot with the other: "This is for Comrade Sharik, you sorry red !@#$."

The bullet blows both of the man's testicles out of his scrotum, and he screams as he flies up and out of the wheelchair, landing some distance away. 

And by the time he's come to a complete stop -- and realizes he's been gelded --  the man with the demon cat is gone.  

(SPYGOD is listening to Manfred Symphony (Tchaikovsky) and having a bottle of Moon Mountain Vodka)