Angel Town
(The sixth book in the Jill Kismet series)
A novel by Lilith Saintcrow
To all the survivors.
Acknowledgments
Thanks are due first of all to Maddy and Nicky, my twin reasons for enduring. After that, my endless gratitude goes to Miriam Kriss and Devi Pillai, for believing in Jill—and in me—even when I did neither. Thanks are also due to the long-suffering Jennifer Flax, and to the usual suspects: Mel Sanders, my bestie; Christa Hickey, who teaches me how to be brave; and Sixten Zeiss, for love and coffee.
Last but not least, dear Reader, I shall continue to thank you in the way we both like best: by telling more stories. Come in, sit down. I hope you like this one…
An army that continues to fight on regardless of the outcome must be considered a well-trained army, whether it is well led or not.
Decensus ad Infernos
In the shifting wood of suicides that borders the cold rivers of Hell, what is one tree more or less?
They are a mosaic, those trees. Every shade of the rainbow, and hues humans cannot see. Every color except one, but that has changed.
There is one white tree, a slender birchlike shape. Instead of a screaming face hidden in the bark, there is a sleeping woman carved with swift strokes. Eyes closed, mouth relaxed, she is a peaceful pale pillar amid the cold shifting.
For Hell is frozen, a chill that burns. The trees shake their leaves, roaring filling their branches.
Under the spinning-nausea sky holding dry stars of alien geometry, something new may happen, might happen, will happen…