. . .

The door to the study slams distractingly open.

Maria is standing there. She has patched her space gun back together with duct tape and umbrella glue. It is blinking red in its unhappiness but it is stable. It is set halfway between the mundane and the sacred; between mortal death and a blast of holy light.

It isn’t whining. It’s already chimed.

This gun is ready to disburse all sacred death and endings.

“I wouldn’t drink that,” says Maria, “if I were you.”

Jane looks at her.

“Once you’ve been an immortal for five hundred years,” says Maria. “Heaven would send a terrible finger to destroy you. And if you survive that, Jane, even if you survived, it’d send a terrible fire and wind to destroy you another five hundred years after that. There’s a reason there aren’t many Taoist immortals around, Jane. It’s the casualty rate!”

<< . . .

. . . >>