evil! Theoretically, at least. Ken Kiang hadn’t exactly done anything villainous yet, but he was certain he would have a brilliant career. He danced around his house, exulting in his damnation.
“I’m a bad man! A bad, bad,
bad
man! Ooh, I’m damned…damned to hell for all eternity…hmmm. What’s that like?”
He looked up
hell
in the encyclopedia.
An abode of demons and lost souls, filled with fire and smoke
. “I expected something more imaginative than that,” he muttered, and read on.
The bodies are heaped upon each other, crushed and packed tight, without even a glimpse of air
. Ken Kiang put the book down, exasperated. “Why, it’s all cuddling!” He gave hell one last chance.
The devils are so horrible that one witness wrote that, rather than look again on such a frightful monster, she would prefer to walk until the end of her life along a track of red-hot coals.
“Oh, please.” Ken Kiang rolled his eyes. “Overreacting, surely. More likely the devil was just as afraid of her as she was of it.”
No, books had nothing more to teach him. Ken Kiang itched for practical application; he was ready for his first evil project. But what? How could he, Ken Kiang, prove to the world that he was the most stylishly evil man who ever lived?
Ken Kiang laughed diabolically! Then he stopped, disappointed: no, his laugh wasn’t quite diabolical. He made a mental note to practice his diabolical laughter for fifteen minutes a day. The devil, he knew, was in the details.
And a few years later, Ken Kiang would have a fine opportunity to use his diabolical laugh, and use it to great effect, as he pursued Jo, Sefino, Aunt Lily, and Colonel Korsakov, a thousand feet over the Pacific Ocean—holding his finger on the button that would destroy them all.
C OLONEL Korsakov’s plane, the
Indignant,
resembled a flying box cobbled out of bits of a dozen other planes, lashed together with chains, frayed rope, and duct tape. It seemed ready to collapse at any moment, but somehow kept sputtering through the sky, coughing and wobbling, plowing through the thunder and rain.
Jo was curled up under mothbally blankets, gazing out at the dark storm. She still couldn’t believe the ruby palace had burned down—but what shocked her most was how Aunt Lily had walked up to Ken Kiang, taken his gun away, and slapped him. Jo had seen Aunt Lily do crazy things, but she had never seen her do anything courageous.
Aunt Lily was just as startled. “I don’t know what came over me. It was like I was fifty years younger! And stronger…and braver, and…” Her gaze lost focus, but her smile lingered.
Jo had explored the plane, bracing herself against the steel walls as it jolted through the storm. The
Indignant
was Korsakov’s and Sefino’s home, and every inch was packed with domestic clutter: the cockroach’s smoking jacket dangled next to the engine crawl space, the colonel’s oboe hung in the bomb bay, and throughout the hull she found a dusty blunderbuss, a shoebox of cufflinks, the jawbone of some underwater animal, a plastic bust of Yuri Andropov…
Sefino strolled up, looking around the plane in distaste. “Of course, should Chatterbox find out I was flying around in this untidy bag of bolts, I’d be the laughingstock of society.”
“Who is this Chatterbox you keep talking about?” said Jo.
“You tell me! I don’t even know anything about his newspaper,” Sefino said, waving his copy of the
Eldritch Snitch
. “I’ve never even heard of Eldritch City.”
“Neither have I.”
“Nobody has. I’ve checked. And yet every morning I am somehow delivered a fresh copy of this nonexistent city’s newspaper. It is maddening.”
“Why don’t you just stop reading it?”
“That wouldn’t do,” said Sefino. “Must keep up on fashionable society, mustn’t I?”
“What fashionable society?”
“I have no idea. But I am definitely a part of it. Why else would they write about me so much?” Sefino trembled, his
“I’m a bad man! A bad, bad,
bad
man! Ooh, I’m damned…damned to hell for all eternity…hmmm. What’s that like?”
He looked up
hell
in the encyclopedia.
An abode of demons and lost souls, filled with fire and smoke
. “I expected something more imaginative than that,” he muttered, and read on.
The bodies are heaped upon each other, crushed and packed tight, without even a glimpse of air
. Ken Kiang put the book down, exasperated. “Why, it’s all cuddling!” He gave hell one last chance.
The devils are so horrible that one witness wrote that, rather than look again on such a frightful monster, she would prefer to walk until the end of her life along a track of red-hot coals.
“Oh, please.” Ken Kiang rolled his eyes. “Overreacting, surely. More likely the devil was just as afraid of her as she was of it.”
No, books had nothing more to teach him. Ken Kiang itched for practical application; he was ready for his first evil project. But what? How could he, Ken Kiang, prove to the world that he was the most stylishly evil man who ever lived?
Ken Kiang laughed diabolically! Then he stopped, disappointed: no, his laugh wasn’t quite diabolical. He made a mental note to practice his diabolical laughter for fifteen minutes a day. The devil, he knew, was in the details.
And a few years later, Ken Kiang would have a fine opportunity to use his diabolical laugh, and use it to great effect, as he pursued Jo, Sefino, Aunt Lily, and Colonel Korsakov, a thousand feet over the Pacific Ocean—holding his finger on the button that would destroy them all.
C OLONEL Korsakov’s plane, the
Indignant,
resembled a flying box cobbled out of bits of a dozen other planes, lashed together with chains, frayed rope, and duct tape. It seemed ready to collapse at any moment, but somehow kept sputtering through the sky, coughing and wobbling, plowing through the thunder and rain.
Jo was curled up under mothbally blankets, gazing out at the dark storm. She still couldn’t believe the ruby palace had burned down—but what shocked her most was how Aunt Lily had walked up to Ken Kiang, taken his gun away, and slapped him. Jo had seen Aunt Lily do crazy things, but she had never seen her do anything courageous.
Aunt Lily was just as startled. “I don’t know what came over me. It was like I was fifty years younger! And stronger…and braver, and…” Her gaze lost focus, but her smile lingered.
Jo had explored the plane, bracing herself against the steel walls as it jolted through the storm. The
Indignant
was Korsakov’s and Sefino’s home, and every inch was packed with domestic clutter: the cockroach’s smoking jacket dangled next to the engine crawl space, the colonel’s oboe hung in the bomb bay, and throughout the hull she found a dusty blunderbuss, a shoebox of cufflinks, the jawbone of some underwater animal, a plastic bust of Yuri Andropov…
Sefino strolled up, looking around the plane in distaste. “Of course, should Chatterbox find out I was flying around in this untidy bag of bolts, I’d be the laughingstock of society.”
“Who is this Chatterbox you keep talking about?” said Jo.
“You tell me! I don’t even know anything about his newspaper,” Sefino said, waving his copy of the
Eldritch Snitch
. “I’ve never even heard of Eldritch City.”
“Neither have I.”
“Nobody has. I’ve checked. And yet every morning I am somehow delivered a fresh copy of this nonexistent city’s newspaper. It is maddening.”
“Why don’t you just stop reading it?”
“That wouldn’t do,” said Sefino. “Must keep up on fashionable society, mustn’t I?”
“What fashionable society?”
“I have no idea. But I am definitely a part of it. Why else would they write about me so much?” Sefino trembled, his
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