Chapter 48
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The ride upstairs seemed to take three days. The world went black, then cleared a little to show Steve Heron staring up at the numbers as if he was willing them to change more quickly. Then the blackness returned, to be replaced by the dark wet alley and the site of three men beating a homeless guy to death for no reason at all. Then Steve Heron again, turning to say something to one of the scientists. Then the burning family in the car and the dead child smeared across the roadway. If there is such a thing as Hell, or “the hell worlds” as the Ja Lama would have said, then I got a glimpse of it in that elevator. It was as if the Quod Glasses had infected me, stained me too deeply to be rinsed away by anything as simple as taking them off.
But the elevator doors came
