Archey meekly follows Double B through the abandoned, silent streets of Winchward Beach. Somehow it's just occurring to Archey for the first time that no one besides him, Mr. Legion and the succubus actually seem to live in the town. People show up and leave periodically, sure, but every house he has seen is nothing but an empty, furniture-less shell. The stores and public service buildings are unstaffed and perpetually closed. Day by day, the town falls deeper into unmaintained disrepair, all without Archey noticing. Archey makes another startling realization. There is no sun, moon or clouds in the sky above Winchward Beach. The sky just inexplicably darkens and lightens every twelve hours or so. How has Archey never noticed these things before? He reaches up and feels around his temple. His horns are around as long as his thumbs now, which is concerning as Archey has unusually long thumbs.

After an hour of trudging through the deathly still streets, they come to Winchward Beach's central park. The park is an arid plain of shriveled dead plants and scorpion bodies arranged in artful patterns. The park's only manmade structure is a fountain in the center, which spews out a neverending deluge of murky, unidentifiable liquid.

Double B strolls into the park and waves at the hesitant Archey to follow. 'Come on, man, we're almost there! You want your pooch back, right?'

Archey grimaces. His fingers twitch with the unmistakable desire to winch. He shouldn't be here. He needs to winch. Archey Billiard needs to winch. He almost turns back, but a small, charred corner of his mind urges him onwards. Archey steps into the park and follows Double B to the fountain.

'Here it is, my compatriot of the cool,' says Double B as he beholds the disgusting fountain. From a pocket in his leather jacket, Double B pulls out a heavy, golden coin and hands it to Archey. On one side of the coin, a pentagram is engraved. On the other, the face of a hawkish, sinister-looking man, with enormous, barbed ram horns.

Double B points at the dark mire of the fountain. 'You gotta do the honors, man.'

Archey looks at him quizzically.

'Throw it, man!' Double B encourages.

Archey attempts to toss the coin in, but his fingers won't let go.

'Throw it,' Double B says. His sleazy smile has dropped. 'Throw it in the fountain.'

Archey's arm is moving on its own. It moves up and down, forward and back, in a repetitious, circular motion. It's attempting to winch. The coin is trapped within his tightly shut fist.

Double B gives a nervous chuckle. 'What is... what are doin', man? Throw it in. Throw the coin into the fountain.'

Archey explains he cannot.

'Why?'

Archey doesn't know. His body just wants to winch.

Double B pulls out a machete and chops Archey's hand off. It and the coin fall into the fountain, disappearing below the murky surface.

Wiping the machete on the trousers, Double B smiles and says, 'Problem fixed.'

Archey stares at the unbleeding stump of his arm. It doesn't hurt at all. It's not that it's numb, he can feel everything up to the wrist just fine. It just doesn't hurt. The fountain begins to rumble, then suddenly cracks in two. The dark liquid spills out into the park, sizzling at it spreads. As the two halves of the dirty stone fountain fall away from each other, a rusty manhole cover is revealed in the space where it once stood. This secret entrance doesn't strike Archey as very reusable. With a satisfied grin, Double B steps forward and picks up the manhole cover with one hand, lifting it as if it were paper. With his free hand, he gives Archey one of Mr. Legion's cursed handguns.

'Don't do that freaky marinating thing, man. It's way cooler to hold it yourself,' Double B advises.

Beneath where the manhole cover lay is a pitch black, seemingly bottomless pit, with no ladder with which to climb down. Double B nods at the hole, signaling for Archey to go first. Archey really, really doesn't want to. On the long list of things Archey doesn't want to do, jumping into the bottomless hole is easily in the top thirty. He very much does not want to do it.

But he does it anyway.

After a moment of terrifying freefall through total darkness, Archey lands face first in pleasantly warm sand. He climbs to his feet (though he doesn't want to) and looks around. For miles in every direction there lies level, pale sand. The sky above is black as night, but the sand is as warm and brightly lit as if it lay under a hot summer's sun. Archey turns around. Behind him lies the only visible structure in this strange underground desert. A simple stone platform, large enough to serve as the foundation for a modest house. On the platform stands a single, stone throne. Occupying the throne is a tall, muscular creature with goat horns, wild eyes and giant black wings that drape over the throne behind it. Abaddon. Standing on the platform alongside him are other, strange beings. To either side of the throne are two women wearing ornate Victorian-era dresses. One wears a plague doctor's mask made of white ceramic, the other a gas mask weaved from red silk. Standing to the right of the gas mask woman is a tall, trim man with gaping abysses for eyes. The abysses leak a constant stream of oil that dribbles down his otherwise immaculate suit and pools at his expensive shoes. To the left of the plague doctor woman is a young boy wearing an orange jumpsuit. He holds his severed head in his arms, but otherwise seems quite healthy. On the far edge of the platform crouches the shadowy figure Archey had mistaken for a television. Finally, chained at Abaddon's hooves, rests Archey's dog, Marmaduke.

'Time to get started,' says Abaddon.