Butcher Bird

She stepped over the fallen columns and broken glass, navigating her way across the buckled floor to Lucifer's curiosity cabinets. None of them had broken, but they lay at crazy angles against the walls and floor. The Chaos cabinet was still standing in its original spot. Lulu went to it and checked herself in the glass. Her reflection stared back with the swirling nothingness behind it.

"It's me," she said. "I look like me again."

"Eyes and skin and everything. Did I get it all right?"

"You tricked me out like an old Chevy. For what? The Clerks still own me. They'll just come and take these eyes, too."

"Lulu, the Clerks are gone. At least the ones who snagged you. If any others ever show up, I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow 'em all down."

Lulu leaned her head on the cabinet, holding her belly. "Why do I feel like this?"

"You were empty. They were making you into them. That's what they do. You're alive again. Being alive hurts," said Spyder. "And you haven't had a stomach in how long? That one's probably hungry."

"I remember hungry."

"You okay?"

Lulu nodded. "Yeah."

"I did the right thing, didn't I?"

Spyder couldn't see Lulu's face. Turning, she walked back to the stairs, staring at her hands.

"Yeah, you did good. It's just a lot to get hold of. I didn't realize how much of me was gone."

"For what it's worth, I know how you feel," said Shrike. "I haven't seen colors in so long. I remember them all, but I can't quite recall which is red and which is blue. It's a little overwhelming."

"That's one word for it."

"Sit with me," Shrike said. Lulu came over the wreckage and curled up with her head in Shrike's lap.

"I'd fuck a duck for a cigarette right now," Lulu said.

Lucifer was inspecting his palace. He picked up a couple of fragments of cherry-colored glass that had fallen from the dome. Holding them over his eyes, he peered up through the hole in the roof of Hell.

"Maybe we should put a skylight up there," he said. "I miss the stars sometimes."

"Sorry for busting up the place," said Spyder.

Lucifer dropped the glass. "Sorry for tricking you into the bowels of Hell."

"I was thinking about taking some time off anyway."

Lucifer smiled at some private joke. "This was all one big con job, you know. I manipulated you, but the universe slipped a good one past me."

"By saying 'universe' you're trying not to say 'God'?"

"Perhaps," said Lucifer. "I had to go to talking meat- sorry, mortals-to save my kingdom. Not only did you have the power to save it, but to destroy it, too. Maybe pride really is my sin. The Painted Man was right in front of me this whole time, and I never even saw you coming."

"Hell, you brought him here," said Lulu.

"Thank you for reminding me," he said with mock gratitude. Lucifer picked up a gilded candle sconce, looked around and threw it back into the rubble. Going to his curiosities, he began picking up the cabinets that had fallen over. Spyder went to help him.

"I don't know about the Painted Man thing," Spyder said as they turned the wooden Faberge egg case upright. The gleaming eggs lay in a thousand pieces on the bottom of the velvet-lined cabinet, bejeweled junk. "I don't exactly feel like Jesus Christ or Bruce Lee."

"Good. That's my job," Lucifer said.

"What happens now?" asked Shrike.

Lucifer pulled the cabinet with John the Baptist's heart from where it was leaning precariously against the wall, setting it flat on the floor. Shifting it inch by inch, he got it aligned exactly where he wanted it. Spyder helped him slide the crown of thorns cabinet until it was just so.

"Deo gratias," Lucifer said. He looked at Shrike. "The Dominions have broken the boundaries of Hell. All bets are off. You can go home any time you like. Me, I begin rebuilding. None of this affects our work here, you know. Yahweh had his little laugh, but we're still building our Heaven." He pulled a scarlet silk kerchief from his pocket and wiped some of the dust off the glass of the cabinet that housed the crown of thorns. "And if he destroys that one, we'll build it again. We have all eternity to get it right."

"We're going to have to take the book with us," said Shrike. "Madame Cinders will want it in return for my father." She brushed some of Lulu's hair out of the girl's eyes.

"Take it. I don't want the damned thing around here."

"Can we really give it to her?" asked Spyder. "I got a glimpse of what it is. I don't know anything about magic and look what it did to me. What could someone with her knowledge do with it?"

"She'll do exactly what Xero was going to do. Make a deal with the Dominions and grab as much power she can," Lucifer said. He opened the case with his puzzle boxes and set them back on their proper display stands.

"We can't let her do that," Spyder said. He went to where Shrike was sitting and knelt down next to her. "We can't give her the key to all that power."

"She'll kill my father. Or worse. Curse him again. He'll be right back in Hell and all of this will have been for nothing."

"I don't know what to say."