​     Eight people blocked the road that led into a city chock full of buildings and pedestrians and vehicles both filling the roads and the skies above.

​     One was a guy twice Adam's size. He did rope tricks with a chain as thick as Adam's leg. Two women held weapons as sophisticated as any Adam had ever seen. An eight foot tall cricket made a clicking sound as the antennae that extended from its skull scanned its surroundings. A thick, sloppy blob of something gray stood on four legs and peered at Adam through the dozens of eyes that dotted its skin.

​     A tall, thin man wearing clothes that looked like they came from nineteenth century America peered at Adam through his monocle.

     Behind everyone else, a figure hidden completely beneath robes and a hood stood quietly.

​     The man with the monocle said, "You're not welcome here. Go back to wherever it is you came from."

​     "I can't do that," Adam replied. "I have only one path left to me, and that path has brought me here."

     One of the women aimed her weapon at Adam's chest.

​     "We'll send you to Hell first," she said.

​     "Been there in a dozen different versions. I've also been to a dozen different heavens. Both get boring after awhile. I am very, very old."

     What more could be said after that?

​     The battle was on.

​END OF CHAPTER SEVEN

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