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The Perdition Score
Richard Kadrey
A smart, kick-arse Urban Fantasy from a new master of the genre. THE PERDITION SCORE is the eighth book in the fantastic Sandman Slim series.Sandman Slim returns in a stunning, high-octane thriller filled with the intense kick-ass action and inventive fantasy that are the hallmarks of New York Times bestselling author Richard Kadrey.The request from Thomas Abbot, the Augur of the Sub Rosa council, couldn’t come at a better time for James Stark, aka Sandman Slim. For a man who’s most recently met Death—and death’s killer—a few months of normal life is more than he can handle. He needs a little action, and now Abbott wants Stark and Candy to investigate the disappearance of a young boy—and help uncover council members who might be tied to Wormwood’s power brokers.Stark’s plans change when he meets a dying angel who gives him a vial of a mysterious black liquid that could be a secret weapon in the ongoing war between angels who want to allow human souls into Heaven and rebel angels willing to die to keep them out. When one of Stark’s closest friends is poisoned with the black liquid, Stark and Candy have to go to the only place where they might find a cure: Hell.But standing in their way are the damned souls who, even after death, still work for Wormwood. The secret deal they’ve struck with the rebel angels is darker than anything Stark has encountered. Not only does the fate of the world hang in the balance, but also the souls of everyone in it. Stark has to find a way to break the stalemate in the angel war, score the Perdition cure for the black poison, and make it back to LA in one piece—where an old enemy waits to finish him once and for all.







Copyright (#u3ca5168d-d312-5740-8c47-36cf18f9e6fa)
HarperVoyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk (http://www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2016
Copyright © Richard Kadrey 2016
Cover designed by Crush Creative (www.crushed.co.uk (http://www.crushed.co.uk))
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016
Richard Kadrey asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008121037
Ebook Edition © June 2016 ISBN: 9780008121044
Version: 2016-06-03

Dedication (#u3ca5168d-d312-5740-8c47-36cf18f9e6fa)
For David Bowie and Lemmy, both gone too soon.

Acknowledgments (#u3ca5168d-d312-5740-8c47-36cf18f9e6fa)
Thanks to my agent, Ginger Clark, and my editor, David Pomerico. Thanks also to Pamela Spengler-Jaffe, Jennifer Brehl, Rebecca Lucash, Kelly O’Connor, Caroline Perny, Shawn Nicholls, Dana Trombley, Jessie Edwards, and the rest of the team at Harper Voyager. Thanks also to Jonathan Lyons, Sarah Perillo, and Holly Frederick. Big thanks to Martha and Lorenzo in L.A. and Diana Gill in New York. As always, thanks to Nicola for everything else.

Epigraph (#u3ca5168d-d312-5740-8c47-36cf18f9e6fa)
If I die, I forgive you. If I live, we shall see.
—Spanish Proverb
I don’t want to go to heaven. None of my friends are there.
—Oscar Wilde
Contents
Cover (#u8789fc98-9db3-59ad-b9cb-f42a770d44a7)
Title Page (#u47fd555b-c825-5733-86bc-7f694dfd591e)
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Epigraph
The Perdition Score (#uef05c159-76d5-5b5d-8505-7b872732c6fc)
About the Author
By Richard Kadrey
About the Publisher
THOMAS ABBOT IS talking about the end of the world, but I can’t keep my eyes open. The inside of my head is all Disney dancing hippos and gators going at each other with knives like candy-colored Droogs.
Ever notice how the more pain you’re in, the funnier the world gets? Sometimes it’s peculiar funny. Sometimes it’s “ha ha” funny, but it’s always funny. I remember almost bleeding to death in Hellion arenas and all I could do was laugh. I understand if that seems a little strange. That’s what I mean about peculiar funny versus ha-ha funny. It’s all a matter of perspective. The more totally fucked you are, the funnier everything gets. Right now the world is hilarious.
What was I talking about? Right. Abbot. The end of the world. At least, I think it’s the end of the world he’s going on about. Maybe someone just keyed his Ferrari. Whatever it is, I’m not listening. It’s not that I’m bored. I’m tired, my head aches, and my eyes hurt like someone’s tunneling out with dynamite. It’s been a month since I’ve slept right. At night, my dreams keep me awake. Awake, the daylight feels like someone scouring my skin off with steel wool. I laugh once and everybody looks at me because they’re not in on the joke. I’m squinting at the light too hard to explain it to them.
“You have something to add, Stark?” says Abbot.
“Not a thing. I’m hanging on every word. But I might have missed some of the last part.”
“I was saying the meeting was over. We’ve voted on everything on the agenda. I had to put you down as an abstention on, well, everything since you didn’t feel like joining in.”
The other ten members of the Sub Rosa council—the den of thieves, high rollers, and important families that run most of our little world—stare or shake their heads in my direction.
“I was with you in spirit, boss.”
“That’s what makes it all worthwhile.”
He turns from me and back to the room. People are getting up, gathering briefcases, purses, and jackets. You could feed every refugee in Europe with what these people have in their pockets.
“Thank you all for coming. It was a good meeting. I’ll see you next week,” says Abbot.
Good-byes to Abbot and general chitchat in the room. It’s like my brain is an open sore and their voices are salt. I don’t ever remember feeling this way, even Downtown.
“Hang around for a few minutes, Stark.”
I nod to Abbot. With my head like this, I wasn’t planning on going anywhere soon anyway.
When everyone leaves, Abbot comes over and sits down next to me. He’s a handsome fucker and that’s always bugged me. All-American boyish looks with all the power of the Sub Rosa at his disposal. We’re on his houseboat in Marina del Rey. The meeting room is trimmed in gold and exotic woods. There’s enough video monitors and other electronic gear along the back wall to launch a nuclear war. Abbot’s floating pad is like a comic-book supervillain’s orbiting death lair. Yet I kind of like the prick. He seems honest. He gave me a seat on the Sub Rosa council. And he hasn’t thrown me out for doing a lousy job. But I can’t help wondering if I’m about to get a Dear John letter. Things aren’t working out. It’s not you. It’s me. You know the routine.
Abbot laces his fingers together and leans back in his chair.
“You don’t look so good,” he says. “Please don’t tell me you’re missing meetings because you’re hungover.”
I shake my head and immediately regret it.
“If only. Then, at least, I’d have had a good time. This, though. It’s a Trotsky icepick.”
“Have you ever been checked out for migraines?”
“I don’t get migraines. I leap tall buildings in a single bound.”
Abbot gets up and looks through an expensive leather messenger bag.
“Let me give you my doctor’s name. He does great work. You’re aware, aren’t you, that as a council member you get health insurance?”
“I do?”
“It was in the packet I gave you when you started.”
“You gave me a packet?”
He comes back over with something in his hand.
“Maybe you lost it at home. Look for it. You even have a small expense account.”
He puts a business card on the table. It has a doctor’s name on it.
“Free money? I’ll find it. And thanks for the advice, but I have my own doctor.”
“Then go see him or her. Doctors are like aspirin. They don’t work if you don’t use them.”
“Speaking of aspirin, you have any?”
There’s something else in his hand. He sets down a small yellow prescription bottle.
“Aspirin won’t do much for a migraine. But you should try these. I get headaches myself and these clear them right up.”
“Your doctor’s Sub Rosa?”
“Of course. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. You’re one of the moneyed chosen. I always pictured you with your own hospital or something.”
He smiles.
“Just one wing. It’s all Dad could afford.”
I look at him.
“I’m kidding,” he says.
“Just give me the pills, Groucho.”
He hands me the bottle and points to the glass of water that’s been in front of me the whole meeting. If it had been a snake, I’d be taking a venom nap by now.
I pop the pills in my mouth. They taste like flowers. Like one of those goddamn violet candy bars my mother used to gnaw on with her whiskey. Very classy. Very sophisticated. I want to spit them out, then remember they’re medicine, so I don’t. Abbot pushes the water to me and I take a long gulp.
“How was that?”
I finish the glass.
“It tastes like the wreaths at a mobster’s funeral.”
He puts the cap back on the prescription bottle.
“It does, doesn’t it? Anyway, you should feel better in a few minutes. I can give you a few extra if you’d like to take them with you.”
“Thanks. But I’ll bug my doctor for something that doesn’t taste like a hobbit’s lunch.”
“Suit yourself. But if you change your mind …”
“Thanks. But I won’t.”
Listen to yourself. Stop whining. This is your boss you’re talking to. He’s given you free drugs and is offering more. That’s what people do when they see someone in pain. Shut up. Be a person.
“I feel better already.”
Abbot gets up, tosses the bottle in the messenger bag, and brings it back to the table.
“I doubt that,” he says, “but you will. Is your head clear enough to talk? I want to discuss something with you.”
“Is this the part where you chew me out for being bad in class?”
“No. I understand how awful migraines can be. But tell me next time and maybe we can do something about it. No, I wanted to talk to you about the real agenda for the meeting.”
“Going to dish about your rich friends? What do you tell them about me?”
He sits back down.
“Nothing. But trust me, they ask. What I want to talk about is the real reason for the meeting. Did you hear anything I said tonight?”
“Something about charities. Climate change. The end of the world.”
“You’re right about the charities part. What I wanted to see was who was pushing for which charities. I think some of the board members are in bed with Wormwood.”
Wormwood Investments. What can I say about that bunch? They’re into money and power. And they have a good time getting and keeping both.
Charity doesn’t really seem to be their thing, though, so I try to get my mind wrapped around that.
“You think that dicking around with charities will tell you which ones are on the take?”
Wormwood is like a mob-run bank if the mob was a Hellion horde and the bank was the world. They make money when the market goes up and currencies collapse. They make money on where and when famines kill the most people. They make money on who is or isn’t damned.
And they make money on me.
Who I kill. Who I don’t. Whether I’m a good boy or a bad boy, they make a profit, and it pisses me off.
“Wormwood has a lot of front groups,” says Abbot.
It clicks. “And the council can funnel to them through the charity fronts.”
“Exactly.”
“So, you want to see who recommends which ones.”
“You’ve got it.”
Another wave of pain gets me just behind my left eye. I close it and squint at Abbot through the right like I’m doing my best Popeye impression.
“Did you find out anything?” I ask.
“Maybe. I made sure everyone knew there was money to be spent. We batted around the names of a few groups, including two that I know have Wormwood connections. The next meeting we’ll vote and see who pushes for which groups.”
“How diabolical of you.”
“Thanks. I’m flattered.”
The wave of pain passes and I can use both eyes again. I get up and go around the table to where there’s another full glass of water and drink most of it.
“Listen. I know a guy—Manimal Mike—with a lot of power tools. Why don’t you point me at some of the shifty types on the council and I’ll show them Mike’s saws?”
Abbot raises an eyebrow before saying, “I’d need some proof before I’d let someone called Manimal Mike loose on anyone.”
“Point me at the Wormwood creeps and I’ll make them sing La fucking Traviata.”
“I hope it won’t come to that.”
“If it’s Wormwood, it will.”
“You might be right.”
I sit back down again and the light in the room stops strobing.
“Hey. I think your hamster food is starting to do something.”
“See? I told you so.” He pauses. “There’s one more thing I wanted to talk to you about.”
He reaches into his bag and pulls out a white folder. He opens it on the table. There’s a photo of a young boy.
“A friend’s son has gone missing. His name is Nick. He’s run away before. Mostly to his father’s house in San Diego. Everyone was assuming that’s what had happened this time, but my friend hasn’t heard anything and is worried. I remember that your lady friend, Chihiro, works for a detective agency. Do you think she could look into it for me?”
Abbot knows damn well that Chihiro is really Candy living with a new name and a new face courtesy of a powerful glamour. I have to give him points for being discreet enough, even though we’re alone, to use her cover name.
“I was heading to her office after the meeting. I’ll give it to her then.”
Abbot’s face relaxes. I hadn’t registered the worry until it wasn’t there anymore. I also notice that he’s gone far out of his way to not say who his friend is.
“Thank you. That means a lot to us.”
Okay. The friend is someone close, not just one of the council members trying to hide a family scandal. So, who is it? A childhood pal? A lover? Is Abbot married? I can’t see his ring finger, but that’s also a pretty Judeo-Christian tradition—not so much among the Sub Rosa types.
I focus back on the missing child.
“How many times has this kid run off? He looks like he’s maybe twelve.”
Abbot picks up the picture, looks at it, and sets it down again.
“Yes. He’s always been precocious. With luck, this is nothing. But there’s some worry that his father might have abducted him.”
I flip the picture over. There’s information on the back. Eye color. Hair. Height. The only contact number is Abbot’s. I close the folder and put it in my coat pocket.
“I’ll give it to Julie. She runs the agency and decides who gets what cases.”
“That’s great.”
“So, what time are we doing this charity vote thing tomorrow?”
Abbot laughs.
“Stark, it’s Friday. We don’t meet again until Monday. Take the weekend. Get your head fixed.”
“Right. Friday. How about that?”
Where the hell did this week go? I swear, it was Tuesday just yesterday.
“Okay, then. I’ll see you next week, boss.”
“See you Monday,” says Abbot.
I leave and walk back to the dock as sunset comes down over the docks. From here, Abbot’s floating Xanadu looks like a burned-out garbage scow. Sub Rosa chic. They love their mansions to look like ten-week-old shit from the outside.
One okay thing about being on the council is that I get a stipend (and apparently an expense account—really need to look at that packet Abbot talked about). Since I can’t use the Room of Thirteen Doors anymore, and since the last car I borrowed got burned by a psycho named Audsley Ishii, I got one of my own. A black ’68 Pontiac Catalina fastback. Actually bought it. Inside, the previous owner put a rebuilt 455 V-8 under the hood. Outside, it looks like a hearse and a cruise missile had a bullet-nosed baby. I get in, turn the key, and make the monster roar.
THE DRIVE FROM Marina del Rey to Hollywood isn’t as hideous as it could be. The 405 tonight is a plodding lava flow instead of a graveyard. Abbot’s gerbil-food pill tuned down my headache, but the headlights on other cars still hurt my eyes. I can’t believe I almost missed Friday. My head will be shaken back into place soon enough. I swear, having a job is half of what’s wrong with me.
I never liked being an employee. I tried it before. Signed on with the Golden Vigil—basically, a government antihoodoo spook force. It didn’t work out. The bosses—Larson Wells in particular—and I didn’t exactly get along (I fought the law and the law won). Then they threw Candy in jail and would have shipped her to a Lurker Alcatraz in the desert if I didn’t get help from a friend. Then they screwed me out of my paycheck. Then I tried playing private detective.
Don’t bother asking how that worked out.
Even though the council gig is a pretty cushy job, being a salaryman grates on me in a very basic way. It reminds me of working for Azazel, a Hellion bigwig Downtown. The relationship was simple: he was the boss and I was his slave. Pull the plow or get sent to the glue factory. This job isn’t as bad as that by a long shot, but being under the thumb of anyone who can burn down your life with a phone call makes me, let’s say, uneasy. Maybe that’s why my sleep has been shit.
I can’t help wondering what Abbot does and who he talks to when I’m not there. Does he discuss me with whoever his personal friends and advisers are? No, that’s not really in doubt—of course he does. The question is what he says and why. I mean, he’s the augur. He’ll play whatever angles he needs to stay who he is. That means he’ll use me against the blue bloods, the blue bloods against me, then he’ll turn around and use us all against each other. None of this automatically makes him a bad guy, just a politician. For now, I’m going to assume he’s on the level with me. But if I get one whiff of nefarious unpleasantness, I’ll dump him in one of the open graves in Teddy Osterberg’s cemetery collection in Malibu and bury him alive.
Right now, though, I need to get off the road as soon as possible. The headache wants to come back down on me. It tightens the back of my skull like an anaconda wrapped around my head. But Abbot’s flower-power pills keep it at bay. I just need it to work for another hour or so. Then, depending on how things shape up, I’ll go to Allegra’s clinic or the other place.
The one I really want to get to.
BUT FIRST, MORE work.
Julie’s detective agency is on Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake. I push the button on the front door and get buzzed in.
The office is up a flight of stairs. She’s fixed it up a bit over the last couple of months. Built herself an office with a door at one end of the space. I tap the glass gently and she gives me a quick wave. Candy’s desk is in the large open space so she can greet potential customers when she isn’t working her own cases. Small-time stuff mostly, but she’s only been at it for a few weeks. Julie fired my ass after just one case. A case I solved, I’d like to point out.
One more indication of what a great employee I am.
Candy in her Chihiro drag doesn’t look like her old too-large-leather-jacket-and-jeans self. She’s dressed in a short, tight black dress with skeleton bones printed on the front and back. Her stockings say BITCH on them about a thousand times and her bag is a bloodshot vinyl eyeball. Her only concession to her old look is that she still wears Chuck Taylor sneakers.
Candy is at her desk laughing with a redhead I haven’t seen before. Each of them has a Styrofoam tray full of noodles. Candy puts down her chopsticks and comes over to me. Gives me a big kiss and takes me by the arm to her friend.
“Stark, I want you to meet—”
“Alessa,” I say.
Alessa, the redhead, opens her eyes a little wider.
“Alessa Graves. How did you know?”
I shrug.
“It’s just this funny trick I can do.”
“See?” says Candy. “Didn’t I tell you he knew cool stuff?”
Alessa nods.
“Cool doesn’t cover it,” she says.
“Fairuza introduced us. Alessa plays guitar. Like real guitar,” Candy says.
“Nice to meet you, Alessa,” I say, holding out my hand like a gentleman or a Realtor. She takes it and we shake briefly.
Alessa looks to be in her late twenties. She’s pretty. Her red hair falls just below her shoulders. She wears a lot of kohl around her eyes, probably trying to hide the lines at their edges, lines she’s too young for. My money says she had drug problems in the past. Meth, I’d guess. Fucked up her skin some, but the addiction wasn’t so bad she lost teeth. I can tell by her smell that she’s clean now. Her heartbeat kicks up a little when our hands touch, but it’s not that she’s all excited to meet me. She’s here to see Candy and talk music. They’re just getting to know each other and suddenly the boyfriend walks in and crashes their guitar geeking. That’s easy enough to fix.
“You should hear Alessa play sometime,” Candy says. “She’s awesome. Her old band toured with Skull Valley Sheep Kill. That’s Stark’s favorite band,” she says, leaning confidentially in Alessa’s direction. She smiles.
“What’s your favorite album of theirs?” she says.
“Plan Nine from Fresno. What’s yours?”
“That’s a good one. I like Cannibal Holiday.”
“That’s a good one too.”
“Hey, maybe you saw her open one of Skull Valley’s shows,” Candy says. She turns to Alessa. “When did you tour together?”
“It was just before we recorded our album. About eighteen months ago.”
I shake my head.
“Sorry. I wouldn’t have seen you. Eighteen months ago …” A quick flash of pain in my head. I picture the arena for a second. “I was out of town.”
“Well, if you’re interested we have some live stuff on YouTube.”
“What should I search for?”
“‘Django’s Coffin.’”
I’m starting to warm up to her. “Is Django your favorite western?”
She shrugs.
“My old girlfriend loved it. I like it, but I like The Furies more.”
“Barbara Stanwyck. When she takes away Rip’s derringer and points it at him.”
“It’s a good way to end an argument.”
“I’ve ended a few that way myself.”
“You should show me sometime.”
“Sure. You, me, and Chihiro can go by the L.A. Gun Club.”
She makes a fist and holds it out. I make one too and we bump.
“Alessa plays surf guitar. She totally kicks Dick Dale’s ass,” says Candy. She holds up an LP that’s a bit battered at the edges. “Look what she gave me.”
The cover is greenish, with a man holding a guitar case on a long stairway. A pagoda in the background. Printed on the front is RASHOMON. TAKESHI TERAUCHI AND THE BLUE JEANS.
“Early-seventies Japanese surf rock. She knows all about it.”
I get it now.
“And you bought her noodles to join your band.”
Candy picks up some chopsticks.
“She brought a record, so I brought noodles.”
“That sounds fair.”
Alessa says, “It’s not quite that simple. Chihiro played me a recording of her band rehearsing. They’re not bad. They need work, but they’re not bad.”
Chihiro. Good. Candy’s staying safe, using her new identity even while she’s trying to lure a professional guitarist into the clutches of her garage band. Maybe Alessa’s drug problem was worse than I thought. For a pro to want to work with Candy’s group, she must have burned some bridges with the local L.A. players.
I look at Candy.
“That’s great. You’ll be playing with Skull Valley soon yourself.”
“Wouldn’t that be great?”
Alessa picks up her chopsticks and pokes at her noodles.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” she says. “We need to learn some actual songs first.”
Candy sits back down at her desk.
“Yes. Songs first. Then touring. See? She’s a total professional.”
I nod.
“Sounds like it,” I say. Alessa continues poking at her noodles. Even I can take a hint. She’s done with me being there. Candy looks at her. She’s done with me too for the moment.
“Listen, I have to talk to Julie, so I’ll let you get back to work.”
Alessa looks up and smiles, glad I figured out what’s what.
“Nice meeting you, Stark,” she says.
“You too.”
I head to Julie’s office. The moment I’m gone they’re digging into their food, Candy talking excitedly through a full mouth. Alessa laughs at her and hums a staccato surf melody.
I knock on Julie’s door. She looks up and nods. I go in.
“How’s it going?”
Julie shakes her head.
“I’m glad I got myself a door. The Bobbsey Twins out there have been yammering for an hour.”
“Chihiro gets a little nuts when the subject of music comes up.”
“‘Nuts’ is the nice word for it. What are you up to these days? If this is a social call, I have a lot of work I have to do.”
I take Abbot’s folder out of my pocket and drop it on her desk.
“Be happier to see me. I’m bringing you business.”
She opens the folder and picks up the photo.
“Is he missing?”
“That’s what Abbot said.”
“Abbot? Thomas Abbot?”
I look at her.
“Happy to see me now?”
“Happier. Do you have any background information on the kid?”
“There’s some stuff on the back of the photo. His name is Nick, Abbot says. It might be a parent abduction, but I don’t know.”
Julie turns the photo over and scans the information.
“You don’t think he’s telling the truth?”
“I don’t know that either. I just know that he went out of his way not to say what his relationship was with the kid or his parents. He just kept saying ‘my friend’ wants me to get you to look into it.”
She turns the photo over and looks at Nick’s face.
“Normally I’d be reluctant to go with a case with so little information and a cagey client, but—”
“Yeah. It’s the augur asking. He’s got money and he’s got pull. It seems like one to take.”
“And so we will. Thanks, Stark.”
I always feel funny when Julie thanks me. She’s the friend who helped keep Candy out of that Lurker relocation camp so she could become Chihiro. Then she gave her a job. We’re both a long way from paying her back for that. Any case I can throw at her, I will.
From the other room we can hear Candy and Alessa laughing. Julie holds a hand off in their direction
“Can you have a word with her? I mean, this is supposed to be a place of business.”
“Looks like she’s on her lunch hour to me.”
“Lunch hour and then some.”
“Look, you made it clear you didn’t want me involved with the agency. I’m not about to go out there and scold Chihiro for a noodle break.”
“Point taken. Just do me a favor and look at your watch on the way out. Maybe she’ll take the hint.”
“I don’t wear a watch.”
“Right. Well, pretend. Stare at your wrist for two seconds.”
I get up.
“I’ll wrestle them to the ground and give them detention.”
Julie gives me a curdled smile.
“Late at night, if you ever wonder why you don’t work here anymore, remember this moment.”
I open the office door.
“I’ll tell Abbot you’re on the case when I see him Monday.”
“Tell him to call me. It would be nice to discuss a fee.”
“I’ll give him your number.”
“Good night, Stark.”
“Good night.”
I walk over to Candy’s desk and make a big show of looking at my wrist.
“What are you doing?” says Candy.
“Looking at my watch.”
“You don’t have a watch. You barely have socks.”
“I’m supposed to be hinting about the time. Julie’s request.”
“Oh.”
Candy glances at Julie’s office.
“I guess I lost track of time.”
“It’s cool,” says Alessa. “I don’t want to get you in trouble with your boss.”
She gets up. Candy comes from around the desk and gives her a hug.
“Call me tomorrow?”
“Yeah. Let’s figure out a time to get the whole band together.”
“Great.”
Alessa tosses her noodles into the trash and heads for the stairs.
“See you around, Stark.”
I give her a wave.
“You too.”
Candy comes over and kisses me hard.
“Isn’t this the best thing ever? We might be an actual band with an actual guitarist.”
“You’re a guitarist.”
“I’m a guitar player. I know three chords. Alessa is a guitarist. Big difference.”
“Well, I hope it all works out and you get to work together.”
“Me too.”
“You need a ride home?”
She shakes her head.
“I have tons of reports and paperwork to do. I’ll be here late.”
“Okay. I might stop by Bamboo House myself. I’ll see you at home.”
She sits down at her desk.
“Tell Carlos hi for me.”
“I will.”
I start for the stairs and she blows me a kiss. I wink at her.
I head for the Catalina parked around the corner and see Alessa smoking a cigarette on the corner. She turns and sees me.
“You need a ride or something?” I say.
“No thanks. I have a cab coming.”
“Okay. Chihiro is pretty excited about working with you. I haven’t seen her this happy in a while.”
“Chihiro’s cool. And her band is all right. I can work with them.”
“Good luck. They’re a handful.”
She takes a drag on her cigarette, blows out the smoke.
“So am I.”
“I don’t doubt it. Well, I’ll see you around.”
“Good night.”
I go back to the Catalina and get in. Candy is working late. My head is mostly better, but not one hundred percent. I can get drugs for it or I can do the other thing. A stab of guilt gets me in the gut. I don’t like keeping secrets, especially from Candy, but I don’t know if she’d understand this and I need it right now. Just until I can get myself together again. I’ll stop by Bamboo House later and bring home some food so the evening won’t be a total lie.
In the rearview mirror, I watch Alessa get into a cab. It swings around and its headlights reflect into my eyes. Icepicks again.
That settles it. I start the car and wait for whoever is hiding in the backseat to do something. When they don’t, I pull out and head south.
About two blocks on, I hear a moan and pull over into the parking lot of a Spanish Evangelical church. I don’t say anything, waiting for the moaner—it sure sounded like a guy—to show himself. He doesn’t and I slip the black blade out of my coat.
“Anytime now, sunshine. Kill me or get out.”
Someone rustles around and slowly sits up. I turn halfway in my seat.
He’s pale. Thin. Unshaven. Three days or more. He doesn’t smell that great either. He leans against the side of the door where his face falls into line with the blinking sign in front of a bodega. There he is, yellow one second, then swallowed in black the next.
“How long did you know?” he says.
I hear it in his voice. Now that I’m looking for it, I can smell it under his stink. “Fuck me. You’re an angel.”
He purses his lips, half smiling and half embarrassed.
“Guilty as charged.”
“Get out.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I’m a nephilim, pal. Half angel and half pissed off. I knew you were there the whole time, but I was waiting for you to do something interesting.”
“Why not attack when you saw me?”
“I was bored.”
“You wanted me to attack you.”
“That would have been more fun than this.”
The angel shakes his head.
“You’re not what I was expecting.”
“How’s that?”
“I came looking for an Abomination. A monster that acts violently on instinct.”
“You came looking for Sandman Slim.”
“Does he still exist?”
I take a pack of Maledictions from my pocket, tap one out, light it, and blow toxic smoke rings in his direction.
“If you came looking for Jack the Ripper, you came a couple of months too late. I’m a solid citizen now. Got a job. Eat my vegetables. Hell, I didn’t even steal this car.”
“I came here for … would you mind rolling down a window?” he says.
“Sure. How rude of me.”
I roll down the driver’s side, letting the fogbank drift away to kill the weeds in the parking lot. Whoever he is in the back seems harmless enough, but I keep my knife ready.
“What was it you were saying?”
He coughs a couple of times. Winces. Drops his weight back against the seat and looks at his hand. There’s blood there.
“If you’re going to bleed to death, please don’t get it on the upholstery. I just had it cleaned.”
He points a bloody finger at me.
“That’s more who I came looking for.”
“For what?”
He’s wearing a dirty trench coat. It looks new, but also like it’s been dragged behind a car. Sort of like the angel himself.
“Who are you?” I ask him.
“Karael. I came a long way to find you.”
“Why?”
He reaches into his dirty coat and I get the black blade ready. From an inside pocket, he pulls out a small ornate box. He leans forward to hand it to me, then falls back against the seat.
“Have you ever seen one of these before?” he says.
I glance at the box.
“It’s very pretty. If it’s a hope chest, you’re one depressed fuck.”
“Look closer.”
I hold it up to the light coming in from the parking lot lights. The box is lacquered black wood rimmed with gold and ornate flourishes that I recognize instantly.
“It was made in Hell. That doesn’t mean I know what it is.”
“Open it.”
I set the box on the passenger seat, well away from me. Pop the latch and push the top back with the tip of my knife. Nothing explodes. No poison gas or hungry ghosts. Inside the box is a padded compartment holding a glass vial full of a watery black substance.
“Okay. I found it. What is it?”
He leans forward again, groaning.
“They need it.”
“Who?”
“The rebel angels.”
I put the vial back in the box and look at him.
“That makes you one of the good guys. How do I know you’re not gaslighting me?”
“Listen,” he says. “I’m dying. There are many of us loyal angels left, but I’m not sure enough. If we fall, the rebel angels will bar all human souls from entering Heaven.”
“What about the ones already there?”
“I doubt they’ll last long.”
“And this black ink is supposed to mean something to me?”
“Black milk, it’s called. No human will enter Heaven as long as they have it.”
The angel looks at his hands. They’re shiny with blood.
“We’re near a friend’s clinic. You should let me take you.”
“It’s too late for that.”
I’m not going to argue. Angels don’t take it well. “What am I supposed to do with this stuff?”
The angel shakes his head.
“I was hoping you’d recognize it. Find out what it is. Find out how to destroy it.”
“How am I supposed to do that? I can’t get to Hell anymore. I’ve lost the Room. I’m as landlocked as any of these other mortal assholes.”
He frowns at me.
“You can’t travel to Hell. You can’t find the secret of the black milk.” He drops his head. “We were so afraid of you once. Abomination, we called you. Now look at you. When you were a monster at least you were good for something. What good are you now?”
I ask myself that every night I get into bed with Candy. But I’m not going to tell this halo polisher about it. When I look at him, he’s staring straight at me.
“Where are you going tonight?”
“None of your business.”
“You used to be an honest monster. Now you keep secrets from your friends. Your lover. Probably from yourself.”
“If you know me so well you know I don’t take advice from angels.”
“Not advice. Merely an observation. Before I came here, Father—Mr. Muninn—wanted me to tell you to follow your instincts. But do you have any left I wonder.”
The clown is getting to me. I want to kick him out, but I remember being bloody and ready to die in the arena. And I can’t kick an angel out in the street, especially not near a church. For all their God talk, the last people alive who want to meet an angel are church types. Show them that Heaven isn’t all gossamer robes and harp recitals and they’ll hallelujah their lunch right into the toilet.
“Look. I’ll get this stuff checked out, but I don’t know what you or Muninn expect me to do after that.”
But when I look up, Karael is gone. Angels do that when they die. Blip out of existence like they were never there. I look at the box, close it, and put it in my pocket. Asshole angel that he was, he died to bring me this sludge. Black milk. I’ll show it to Vidocq tomorrow. Right now I have to get across town. I’m late and I can’t afford to miss tonight. It’s funny, though. Arguing with an angel, my headache disappeared. Now that he’s gone, I can feel it crawling back behind my eyes.
I need the cure and I need it soon.
For a second, I wonder about Alessa waiting for her cab. Could she be in on this? Was she there to distract me from Karael in the backseat? If there’s something more going on with her—more than playing guitar with Candy—I’m going to find out what. Until then, it’s time to get on the road. I start the car and head back into traffic, hoping that whatever kind of ectoplasm Karael leaked onto my seats will come off with soap. Heaven might be at war, but that doesn’t mean angels get to fuck up my car.
HE COMES AT me low, puts his weight behind the punch, and slams it in under my ribs. I let him do it. I like the feel of the blow, my muscles screaming, the breath rushing from my lungs. I relax into the pain. It’s something real and tangible, and unlike the headaches, these punches, elbows, and kicks deliver a completely different kind of pain. The headaches make me weak at the knees. This Hulk Hogan stuff, I can grab on to and choke the life out of.
The guy coming at me is built like a battleship welded together from fat and blind fury. Whatever he does for a living, he needs a new job. Whoever he’s married to needs to get a ticket back home to Mom because the SS Shithead here is not fit for human company. I guess that’s why he was the only one who wanted to fight me tonight. There are a couple of dozen other guys in the abandoned high school, but none stepped up. I’ve beaten most of the others down here in the fight pit. No one knows who I am down here, but I’ve laid out enough of them that it’s mostly the new guys and the crazy ones who want to go at me. I’m not exactly a big guy—people call me Slim for a reason—but most of the weekend gladiators down here are scared off by my scars. But the ones who step up—the crazy ones—they’re the cure for a sane life. My best friends and the only elixir for a Trotsky headache.
The only thing I worry about is my left arm. The Kissi one, an inhuman prosthetic that looks more like it belongs on a Terminator insect than a person. That’s a problem.
My buddy Manimal Mike makes mechanical-animal familiars, though. He’s good with fake skin and made me a sheath so my freak-show left arm matches my right. As far as anyone here knows, I’m just ugly, scarred meat that, like them, is looking to blow off a little steam.
I let the battleship thunder a right cross into my chin. It’s gorgeous. A work of art. For a second, I see stars and choirs of angels. The harder he hits me, the more he loosens the icepicks behind my eyes.
Unfortunately, right when I’m having fun, the big guy decides to get stupid. I’ve let him hit me enough that he thinks I’m out on my feet and his mean streak is kicking in. When he punches my face he sticks out his thumbs, hoping to gouge out an eye. I shove him back a few feet to get his attention. He thinks it’s just muscle memory. That I’m punched out. I give him one more chance to fight like a human being.
But he does it again. I feel his thumbnail catch skin and tear open a slit over my eye. The sight of blood turns him from asshole into animal and he rushes me, hoping to rip the cut open more so the blood blinds me. It’s a decent strategy, but he’s too big, too dumb, and too slow.
When he swings, I duck his first punch, then block the jab he throws with his other hand. While he’s still surprised I give him a shot in the Adam’s apple. Hit there hard enough and you can collapse someone’s trachea and they’ll choke to death, spitting blood the whole time. But I just hit hard enough so that he won’t be able to breathe for a couple of minutes.
The battleship staggers back and I close on him, jamming a fist into his gut, then an uppercut when the first punch bends him over. He falls to his knees and I hope he’s going to stay down, but the dumb animal doesn’t know he’s beat. He pushes himself up and runs at me like a bull with a bottle rocket tied to his balls. I wait until he’s almost on me, then jump, slamming my knee up into his jaw. This time when he goes down his eyes are pinwheels and his brain is on a train to Cincinnati. He doesn’t get up.
The room is quiet for a minute, then a whoop goes up. Two dozen shirtless attack dogs—the other fighters—cheer me on, except for a few I beat as badly as this guy. The pit boss, the closest thing we have to a ref, comes over and checks the battleship’s eyes and breathing. He waves his hand in a circle, signaling that the guy is alive, but he’s not getting up. A couple of the boss’s flunkies come over and haul the guy off the fighting floor like a pile of bad meat. I don’t see where they take him. Supposedly, there’s a volunteer doctor down here, but I’ve never seen him.
The fighting pit is really an empty swimming pool in the old school gym. I climb the few steps up to ground level. Guys pat me on the back and call me “killer,” tell me what a champ I am. Who fucking cares? All I know is Trotsky is out of my head and I can look at the gym lights without running into the dark like a bug.
Part of the gym roof is down. The floor is warped in places, collapsed in others. Filthy clothes and food cans lie scattered around the walls. The place must have been a homeless crash pad before the amateur brawlers took over. For all I know, one of the other fighters owns the property. I’ve seen some flash shirts and designer shoes around the pit during the fights. Maybe here is the real estate agent for his family’s property. What would Daddy and his money think if they knew what junior was up to?
As I put my shirt and boots back on, the pit boss comes over. He’s an older guy with a few scars of his own. He has one cauliflower ear and nicotine-yellow teeth. I never did learn his name. He stands there a minute waiting for me to say something. When I don’t, he starts in.
“You ever fight professionally?”
“Nope.”
“You interested?”
“Nope.”
I touch the heel of my hand to my eye. It comes back with a streak of blood and the cut hurts from the salt in my sweat.
“There’s good money in it,” continues the pit boss. “I have connections. I could put you in the ring tomorrow. Strictly underground, you understand. A grand in your pocket guaranteed. More if you win.”
I pick up a piece of broken glass from the floor and check my reflection. I heal fast and the cut is already beginning to close, but I’ll have a bruise until morning.
The pit boss is still standing there. I want him to go away before he sees me heal too quickly for an ordinary person. I turn around and give him a friendly half smile.
“Let me think about it.”
“Sure,” he says. “We can talk about it next time. You can sure handle yourself out there and, if you don’t mind me saying so, you look like you could use some walking-around money.”
“You think so?”
He comes closer and speaks quietly.
“I know an ex-con when I see one. From your clothes, I’m guessing with your record you can’t get a decent job. I understand. I’ve been there. I can help.”
I look at my coat and boots. I’m not a fashion plate, but what the hell about them says con? Or is it just me?
Probably me.
Glancing at my crooked fairy godfather, I say, “Thanks. I’ll talk to you next time.”
He claps me on the back and shakes my hand.
“Tomorrow?” he says, anxious enough that it’s annoying.
“I’m not sure. It depends on when I can get out.”
“I understand. I have an old lady too. Well, you know where to find us. See you soon.”
He bobs his head and goes back to the fight pit, where men are stripping off shirts and shoes for the next bout.
I have an old lady too. Is that the kind of vibe I’m giving off? An ex-con with a shrew at home checking my breath for booze and my wallet for what little pay I can scrounge? I picture Candy, the very opposite of all that, and feel like more of a heel than ever. I can’t keep this up. I hate lying and I hate these people. But this regular life …
Sometimes it makes me want to cut my throat and head down to Hell forever. At least I understand the rules down there. But I’m not the suicide type, especially knowing how it would hurt the few people I care about.
I grab my ex-con coat and head out. When I get back to the Catalina, I check under the seat for the angel’s box. It’s right where I left it. I look at it again. Open it, take out the vial, and shake it. Black milk. It sounds charming. What every good boy and girl needs for a growing body. I put it back and slip the box back under the seat. The cut over my eye has stopped hurting. I run a finger over it and don’t find any blood. That’s good news at least. I start the car and head back into Hollywood. I need a drink to wash the taste of cheap lies out of my mouth.
A LITTLE EAST of home is Bamboo House of Dolls, the best punk tiki bar in L.A. Old Cramps and Germs posters on the walls. Plastic hula girls and palm trees behind the bar. An umbrella in your drink if you ask nicely. There’s also a brilliant jukebox. Martin Denny. Arthur Lyman. Meiko Kaji. I don’t think there’s anything on there less than forty years old.
Carlos, the bartender, laughs when he sees me.
I sit at the bar and he pours me a glass of Aqua Regia, the number one booze in Hell.
He says, “What happened? The bigger kids took your lunch money?”
I touch my eye.
“It doesn’t look that bad, does it?”
He steps back, cocking his head from side to side like he’s trying to find the naked lady in a Picasso.
“I’ve seen you worse. The scab is almost gone, but you’ve got a nice bruise over your eye.”
“Goddammit.”
“Let me guess. You ran into a tall midget with an iron hat. Or a small giant carrying a lunch box.”
“The truth is more embarrassing, so let’s go with that last one.”
“Please tell me you at least won the fight.”
I sip the drink. It tastes like gasoline and burns just right going down.
“I won, all right. But I shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”
He picks up and tosses a couple of drink coasters some customers left behind.
“Then why were you there? I thought your looking-for-trouble days were behind you.”
“That’s the problem. They are most of the time. I want them to be, but sometimes … it feels like if I don’t hit something my brain will go nuclear and run out my ears.”
Carlos gives the bar a quick wipe-down and pours himself a drink.
“I know your problem. Seen it a thousand times before. Before I bought this place, when I was a little niño, I barbacked at a cop bar over by Rampart. The ones still working, most of them had their heads wired on right enough, but the old-timers? The retired ones or the bad ones that were exiled to desk duty? They could chew their way through steel. You killers, you men of action, take you out of the game and you’re always a month from eating your gun.”
I swirl the Aqua Regia around in the glass.
“Thanks for your concern. It’s touching. Really.”
“Don’t be so sensitive,” says Carlos. “Those guys, they didn’t have your advantages.”
“Such as?”
“The things you can do. The places you can go.”
I finish my drink.
“That’s the problem. I can’t go places anymore. I can still do everything I used to, but I don’t have anywhere to do it.”
“And you being you, you go looking for trouble and you’re going to find it.”
“Finding it’s not the problem. Not looking like I found it is. Chihiro would hate it, and my boss, he wouldn’t be too happy either.”
Carlos opens the cooler under the bar, puts some ice in a clean rag, and hands it to me. I hold it to my bruised eye.
“Then it’s just me that’s amused watching you twist yourself in knots,” he says.
“I don’t like lying to people, but I’m not built to be, I don’t know, a regular person. I was born to break things. Even my father said so.”
“A natural-born killer.”
“That’s what the old man said.”
Carlos pours me more Aqua Regia.
“Your problem is you’re all Koyaanisqatsi. You remember that movie?”
I nod. “A hippie music video ninety minutes too long.”
“The whole thing is only ninety minutes.”
“Yep.”
Carlos uses a finger to draw a shape on the bar in the moisture left from the rag. A little yin yang sign.
“Aside from its virtues as a film, the word Koyaanisqatsi means ‘life out of balance.’ That’s you, my friend. You go from crazy hit man to a pencil pusher on some board of directors or something with no steps in between. Of course it’s going to make you a little crazy.”
“And I’ve lost the Room. It’s not just that I could travel through it. I used to think that was it, but it’s not. The Room was always my place. Somewhere I could hide from this world, Heaven, and Hell. No one could touch me there. It’s the only place I ever felt …”
“Safe,” says Carlos.
I look at him.
“I don’t know.”
“Of course you know. You lost your happy place and now you’ve given up the thing that kept you alive all these years. Your fists. That’s not the recipe for a happy life.”
“So, what do I do?”
“You got yourself Koyaanisqatsied. Now you have to get yourself unkoyaanisqatsied.”
“Yeah, but how?”
Carlos shrugs.
“Take a pill. Get a cat. Follow the yellow brick road. I don’t know. I’m not a shrink. But this isn’t the first time you’ve come in with bruises on your face or hands and I’ve helped you hide them. I’ll tell you, though: I don’t like lying either. Chihiro is good people. Come to me to talk anytime you like, but me helping you hide your sins? Tonight is the last time. I’ve cut off drunks and junkies and now I’m cutting you off. No more ice after tonight.”
Someone pushes past me and orders shots of bad Scotch. I look at my hands. Some of the knuckles are swollen, but not so much you’d notice if you weren’t looking for it. I hold the ice on my eye. No wonder the pit boss thinks I’m an ex-con. I am. Only I did my time in Hell and I came out with exactly the same problems all those cons have when they get out of federal or state pens. Candy and Julie nagged me about PTSD a few weeks ago. I didn’t want to listen. I still don’t, but maybe they’re onto something. Maybe this fighting on the sly isn’t fixing anything. It’s me feeding whatever is wrong with me. So, what do I do about it? I stop is what I do. No more fights. Carlos is right. I need a dog. I need a doctor. I need something else that doesn’t make me a chump and a liar every time I open my mouth.
Then I remember something. I take out the box and put it on the counter.
“Carlos, you’re a man of spirits and exotic liquids. Have you ever heard of something called black milk?”
He hands the guy his lousy Scotch and thinks for a few seconds.
“Never. What is it?”
I open the box and take out the vial.
“This. Only I don’t know what this is.”
He takes the little glass bottle and holds it up to the light. Shakes it a little.
“Where did you get it?”
“It was a gift. Of sorts.”
“More secrets? Who gave it to you?”
“No one I can talk about this close to such shitty Scotch. You should be ashamed of yourself for selling it.”
The guy who ordered them turns to me.
“Hey, I like this stuff. Who made you king high shithead of Scotch?”
I start to say something, but he backs up a step and his mouth opens like a roast pig waiting for an apple. The guy is slumming it tonight. He tried to dress down because he knew he was coming here, but the manicure and the million-dollar college ring give him away.
“Oh shit,” he says. “You’re him. I heard you hang out here. Can I buy you a drink?”
Carlos waves the guy off.
“Not tonight, man. Come back at Christmas. He’ll be a chipper fucker by then. Won’t you, Stark?”
I look at Carlos, not at the groupie.
“Thanks, but I have a drink.”
“Then, can I get a picture with you?” he says. “I swear it will only take a second.”
“What did I just tell you, pendejo?” says Carlos. “Not tonight.”
Out of the corner of my eye I can see the guy turn from Carlos to me and back to Carlos. He holds up his hands.
“Fine. Be an asshole. You’re not that special, you know. I’ve met lots more cool people here and what do you call them …?”
“Lurkers,” I say.
“Yeah. Lots more interesting ones than you.”
I look at him.
“There’s lots here that love guys like you. Just be sure to check your wallet before you go home.”
He takes the cash for the drink out of his front pocket. He slaps himself on his back pocket, hoping to hit imported hand-tooled leather. By the look on his face I’d say he came up empty.
“Shit,” he says, and checks another pocket, coming up with his iPhone. He looks relieved. At least he can still text his buddies about his night with the wild people on the bad side of town.
He thumbs the phone on and says, “Please. So the night isn’t a total loss. Just one picture.”
“Get out,” says Carlos. “You don’t listen, so you can’t stay. Move. Now.”
I look at Richie Rich.
“Better do what he says or he’ll hit you with a coconut carved like a monkey.”
The guy gives up. Puts his phone in his breast pocket, sadder but wiser.
“I get it. Sorry to have bothered you. I’m going. Besides,” he says, “you look like hell.”
“Now,” says Carlos.
Richie starts for the door.
Carlos shakes his head.
“Some people couldn’t buy a clue with all the gold in Fort Knox.”
I hold up my glass, toast Carlos, and down my drink.
“Thank you, Doctor. I’m feeling much better now. How’s my eye?”
He looks and nods.
“It’s getting there.”
Then he looks up past me.
Someone throws his arm around me and clicks a picture. It’s Trump and his iPhone. I turn just in time to see him scrambling out the front door with my bruised face in his hand.
Perfect.
So, to sum up the evening. A Sherman tank with the brain of an angry hamster gave me a black eye, and now some college boy snuck up behind me and got my picture without me even knowing he was there. I think this is what’s known as a wake-up call. Something has to change. Starting with me.
“You have any food left back there tonight?”
“Some tamales with some beans and rice. You want some to go?”
“Could I get three?”
“No problem.”
He disappears into the back and reappears with a packed paper bag.
I sniff the food and smile.
“What do I owe you?”
“You know you always eat and drink for free around here,” he says.
“Not for the food. The advice.”
“All you owe me is not fucking yourself up anymore. Do that and we’re square.”
I set down the rag I’ve been holding to my eye and pick up the food.
“I’ll work on it.”
“You do that. And tell Chihiro hi for me.”
“You got it.”
I got out to the car and set the food on the passenger seat. Donald Trump is halfway down the block showing his phone to anyone who’ll look. Showing my face to strangers.
I start the car and gun the engine a couple of times. If he moves just a little to his right, I could pick him off without hitting anyone else. The front of this Catalina is solid steel. He won’t even make a dent. I can just hose him off when I get home.
But I don’t do it. It would be too easy. Too Koyaanisqatsi. Something has got to change and it will start with me not killing a rich kid who’ll go on drinking shit Scotch and stealing photos with people because he’ll never know how close he came to frat-boy Heaven tonight.
I pull away from the curb and head home.
“I KEEP TELLING you,” says Kasabian when I come in. “If you just buy the Girl Scouts’ cookies, they’ll leave you alone.”
“That gets funnier every time you say it.”
“It’ll be even funnier next time.”
Kasabian runs things day to day at Maximum Overdrive, the video store where I live with him and Candy. Him downstairs in the back and me and Candy in the small apartment upstairs. This arrangement is best for everyone if for no other reason than Kasabian doesn’t really have a body. I mean, he has one, but it’s not his. It’s a retrofit from a mechanical hellhound body I stole when I could still shadow-walk Downtown.
“Keep going. You’re going to talk yourself out of tamales.”
Kasabian holds up a mechanical hound paw.
“Witness me shutting up.”
The paw creaks a little as he says it. Sometimes he clanks when he walks. That’s the other reason he spends most of his time down here and not upstairs in our palatial penthouse. I set the tamales on the counter.
“Smart man. How’s business?”
“We’re doing all right. Still making bank off the special stash. But we haven’t had anything new in for a while. The requests are piling up.”
The special stash are videos a little witch named Maria gets for us through her ghost connections. Movies that don’t really exist, at least in this time and space. James Cameron’s Spider-Man. Sergio Leone’s The Godfather. Orson Welles’s Heart of Darkness.
“Do you explain that our movies come from another fucking plane of reality? It’s not like we’re rifling the bins at the Salvation Army.”
Kasabian lifts the edge of the tamales bag and looks inside. I close it and move the bag to the other end of the counter. He gives me a look.
“They’re customers,” he says. “They know what they want and they want it now.”
“Next time someone whines, tell them to fuck off home and watch Kindergarten Cop on Netflix.”
He slips a DVD into a case and holds it up in my direction.
“And that’s why you’re not allowed down here during business hours.”
“I have my own work these days. I don’t have to mingle with you rabble.”
He points at my eye.
“Your boss give you that for mouthing off?”
“It’s still noticeable?”
“Like a glazed ham at a bris.”
“Don’t say anything when you see Candy.”
I take the bag and head upstairs.
“Hey. What about the tamales?”
“No one eats until Candy gets home.”
“I admire her work ethic, but tell her to get a day job. I’m hungry now.”
“Didn’t someone say that suffering was good for the soul?”
“Only preachers and insurance salesmen.”
“We’re still waiting. I’ll put these in the oven to stay warm.”
I go upstairs, stash the tamales, and go into the bathroom. In the bathroom mirror, I stare at my face. Yeah. There’s no way she’s not going to notice the bruise. It will be gone by morning, but right now I’m fucked. For a second, I think about more ice, look at myself again, and see how stupid and desperate that is.
I take the angel’s box out of my coat and put it on the bedroom bureau. Maybe Vidocq will be able to tell me what this is. He’s an alchemist. Even if he doesn’t know what black milk is, maybe the box will be in one of his books.
What was it Abbot was talking about at the meeting? The end of the world. Climate change. Charities. Blah blah. Then through the memory of the headache it comes to me: Wormwood. Something is up with them. Those Wormwood creeps I met a few months back hinted they had a branch office in Hell run by Norris Quay. He used to be the richest man in California, but he was dumb enough to follow me into Kill City. Now he’s the richest corpse.
I go downstairs. Kasabian is still putting returned discs back in their cases. I go over and put a few in myself, but he takes them away when I mix up the DVDs and Blu-rays.
As casually as I can I say, “How’s your view of Downtown these days?”
He raises his eyes to me for a second, then goes back to putting away discs.
“You haven’t asked about Hell in a while. Since you went white collar, I thought you’d forgotten about the place.”
“It’s depressing not being able to see the place for myself.”
“You’re the only person who thinks it’s depressing they can’t see Hell. Why do you care all of a sudden?”
“I met an angel tonight. Karael. He said that Heaven is fucked. If it is, that usually means Hell is double-fucked.”
“That’s a distinct possibility,” Kasabian says.
“You still have access to the Codex and the peeper I gave you?”
The Daimonion Codex is basically Lucifer’s Boy Scout manual on running Hell. Once he let Kasabian look inside, he could sneak looks all over Hell. I gave Kas the peeper. It’s a magical eye you can look through and see remote places. Sort of Hellion security cams.
He scratches his nose with a metal claw.
“Your angel is right. Pandemonium is falling apart. Like Berlin after the blitz falling apart. Nothing works anymore but the sewers. The buildings are falling apart. Gangs of ex-Hellion soldiers and some of your less savory damned souls run protection and control everything from weapons to food. Basically, anyone who isn’t going Wild Bunch in the city is going batshit at Heaven’s gates. You said they’re supposed to be open, but I haven’t seen it.”
“I know. Goddammit. I wish I could see into Heaven.”
Kasabian raises an eyebrow.
“You never said that before.”
“I never had a reason. If I knew Karael was telling the truth and angels were fighting each other, it would make it easier to believe him about other things.”
“What do you care what some angel says? They’re all assholes.”
“I met a couple of okay ones over the years. Not many. One or two. Karael gave me something. And he said no souls would get into Heaven as long as the war lasted.”
“What did he give you?”
“No clue. I’m taking it to Vidocq tomorrow. Do you know much about Wormwood?”
“Only what you told me.”
“How about Norris Quay? Do you ever see him Downtown?”
“Now, him I’ve seen,” Kasabian says. “He’s a real player in Pandemonium. Got himself protection. A nice setup in an office building. Norris is doing fine, making bank on everything that goes down.”
“Any new souls hanging around with him?”
“They come and go. You know more Wormwood faces than I do. I just see creeps in tailored suits and limos with Hellion escorts.”
I pick a DVD of David Cronenberg’s Frankenstein and Kasabian plucks it from my hand, slipping it into its case.
“I need to get down there and see the place for myself.”
“I need a week in Fiji with Brigitte Bardot, but that’s not going to happen either.”
“You’re right about that.”
“I’m always right, but you won’t admit it.”
“There’s no Nobel Prizes around here. Just tamales.”
“It’s time for you to call the missus. Tell her I’m going to die sorting discs.”
“Good. More tamales for us.”
“And once again, you’re not allowed down here. Go upstairs and stay out of my way.”
“Yes, boss.”
I go upstairs and pour myself some Aqua Regia.
If Abbot is right and Wormwood is playing games up here and Quay is doing business down there, it makes sense that they’re connected. I wonder if he’s the source of black milk? But how would he make money off it? And who else could be working with him? Maybe David Moore. He’s dead and had connections through a talent agency run by the Burgess family—Wormwood heavyweights. But that wouldn’t help Kasabian. He wouldn’t recognize Moore. Fuck me. I should have brought more peepers with me when I came back from Hell that last time. Just another in a long series of mistakes. Maybe there’s some other way I can see Downtown like Kasabian. Who could help with that? Maybe go back and ask the powers that be in Piss Alley? Maybe not. When they gave me the power to sidestep for a week, it aged me enough that I’ve got a few gray hairs. Who knows what price they’d want next time?
I go into the bathroom, strip off my clothes, and get into the shower. I need to wash the fight and as many lies off me as I can.
When I get out, I can hear Candy and Kasabian talking downstairs. She comes up and the first thing she says is, “Kas says you have a black eye. Are you all right?”
If Kasabian wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him tonight.
“I’m fine. I just bumped my head getting off Abbot’s damned boat.”
“Poor baby,” she says, and drops her vinyl eyeball bag on the kitchen counter.
She comes over and kisses my bruised eye.
“Maybe I can take your mind off all the pain.”
Candy opens the eyeball and pulls out the record Alessa Graves gave her. She puts it on the stereo and cranks up the sound. The trembling rumble of surf guitar fills the room.
Reaching under the towel, she begins to massage my cock, then kisses me hard. I lean against her, smelling her hair and neck. She pulls off my towel and pushes me down on the sofa, keeps pumping me with her hand. I pull her on top of me and start to roll her over when she says, “Wait a minute.” She throws off her short dress and underwear and pulls me inside her.
“Fukaku hamekonde chodai,” she whispers.
I have no idea what that means, but I don’t think it has anything to do with tamales. When she wraps her legs around me, I have the strange feeling it’s the music more than me that’s driving her, but it doesn’t seem like the right time to ask.
THE GOOD NEWS is that we don’t break any furniture we care about, just a secondhand lamp that was here when I moved in. I know that if I get another lamp, Candy will conveniently lose it and replace it with something horrifying. Something that spins and has talking robots or waving tentacles.
Candy crawls into bed and we divvy up the tamales. I take some down to Kasabian, and when I come back upstairs, she’s propped against a pile of pillows digging into her dinner. I take my plate into the room and join her in bed.
“Hey, do you remember me bringing home a folder or packet of some kind when I went to work with Abbot?”
She nods, holds a hand over her mouth, and chews.
“It’s on the floor next to the bureau. You put it there and I’ve been wondering how long it would take you to ask about it.”
“You looked inside?”
She nods, looking a little guilty.
“Sorry. A big envelope from the augur. How could I not look? Besides, knowing you, it was a check for a million dollars and you forgot about it.”
I mix some beans with rice and swallow a mouthful.
“I guess I don’t have a good history with money.”
“It’s not money. It’s authority. Someone gives you a job and you take it, but then they give you an envelope full of stuff to read and it’s like homework. You leave it on the floor hoping the dog will eat it.”
“And it never does.”
“You’re mad at the dog we don’t have?”
“Can we rent one to clean up my mistakes?”
“It would have to be a pretty big dog.”
I poke her in the leg with my fork and she punches my arm. Candy isn’t exactly human. She’s a Jade, which is kind of like a vampire, only worse. It also means she’s strong. Her love taps are like a velvet-covered baseball bat.
“Abbot said there was stuff in the folder about insurance.”
“Mmm,” says Candy around a mouthful of food. She swallows and says, “Yep. Medical and dental. There’s 401(k) stuff in there too.”
“Now he’s just fucking with me. He knows I don’t have any bank accounts.”
“He’s the augur. He has pull. Just because there’s paperwork that says you’re dead, it doesn’t have to always be that way. Talk to him. Maybe the Sub Rosa can resurrect the late James Stark.”
I shake my head and eat my tamales. I’m very hungry and then very self-conscious. We’re in bed naked and I wonder if I have any bruises on my body from the fight. I should have checked myself when I took a shower. It’s a good thing I’m not a spy. I’d blow my cover story two minutes into enemy territory. I change the subject.
“Did Julie tell you about the kid I brought her?”
“Yeah. He’s a friend of the Abbot’s or something like that.”
“Abbot was cagey. I’ve been wondering about that, but I don’t know what to think.”
“There aren’t that many secrets men usually have about a missing kid. The kid is dead. The kid was snatched by the mother and he doesn’t want to say so. Or he snatched the kid and doesn’t want to say. There’s another more common reason.”
“Come on. Tell me.”
“It’s his kid and maybe Mom is married to someone else.”
I try to picture that for a second. I don’t know anything about Abbot’s personal life. He could date women, men, or tentacled elder gods for all I know. I look at Candy.
“You’re getting good at that detective stuff.”
“I know,” she says. “That’s why I’m with Julie and you got fired.”
“Thanks for bringing that up again.”
“Blame it on the dog.”
When we finish the tamales, Candy grabs the plates, takes them into the kitchen, and ditches them in the sink. She comes back into the bedroom and crawls onto my lap.
I start to kiss her, but she pulls back.
“What’s wrong?”
“What happened to your eye?” she says.
I reflexively touch the bruise.
“It’s nothing. Like I said, I bumped my head leaving Abbot’s boat tonight.”
“Sandman Slim walks into doors?”
“Hey, a guy snuck up behind me tonight and sneaked a selfie before I knew it.”
“That I can believe,” she says, and rolls off me onto her back. “I know there’s something wrong with you, but I can’t help if you won’t let me.”
“I’m okay,” I say.
“No, you’re not. This isn’t the first time you’ve come home bruised. You’re usually better at hiding them, but I know your body pretty well, so I notice them even when I don’t say anything.”
I put a hand down on the bed and she reaches out and wraps her warm hand around one of my fingers. I don’t want to look at her, so I look at my hand. Old scars gleam white like I stuck my hand into a metal grinder looking for my car keys.
“I’m still getting used to this new life is all. I’m a little off balance.”
She rolls onto her stomach and looks at me.
“Know how we just talked about me being a detective? If you’re doing something to hurt yourself, I’ll find out.”
“Let it go this time, okay? I’m just a little off balance, but I’m getting better.”
“Okay,” she says uncertainly. “But I reserve the right to bring it up again if I suspect you of asshole behavior.”
“Agreed.”
She sits up and kisses me.
“You told me I could tell you anything. You can do the same with me.”
“I’ll remember that. Thanks.”
She puts her arms around me and I just hold her like that for a while. I feel something light slide down my chest. She’s crying or I’m sweating. Probably both. I feel like I’m fourteen, caught in a lie within a lie with no way to get out.
“Do you want to get a dog sometime?” Candy says.
“Not really.”
“Thank God. Neither do I.”
See? The truth didn’t hurt. Now I need to get out of this particular knot of lies by not going back into the fight pit.
“Get whatever kind of lamp you want for the living room. Flying robots. Naked witches.”
“You know I was going to anyway.”
“Yeah, but I just wanted to say it.”
“Thanks. You know if I find out someone’s hurt you, I’m going to eat their fucking heart, right?”
“I know.”
“I know you know, but I just wanted to say it.”
“Thanks. Can I ask you one more favor?”
“What?”
“Can you turn that goddamn surf record over and play the other side. You’ve played this one about fifty times.”
“This is my homework. Alessa is going to teach me surf guitar.”
“I bet there are songs on the other side you can learn.”
“Your wish is my command,” she says, and pads out of the bedroom to the stereo.
When she’s gone, I take a long, deep breath. This thing we have. I don’t want to fuck it up. I don’t want to lie anymore and I don’t want a dog. I just want Candy or Chihiro or whoever she has to be next to stay alive. We’re in this together and I’ll kick the ass of anyone who gets in the way. Even if it’s me.
“Did I tell you an angel gave me a birthday present tonight?”
She comes back into the room and flops onto the bed.
“No. Tell me every little thing about it.”
So I do. And we’re okay.
For a while.
CANDY IS GONE when I wake up in the morning. There’s a note on the kitchen counter when I go in to make coffee.
Jamming with Alessa at her rehearsal space after work.
Home late. Be naked.
There are some hearts and she’s taped a press-on tattoo of a sleeping cat at the bottom of the note. I lick a spot on my forearm and press down on the tattoo. A minute later I pull it off. No cat. Just a few frayed lines scattered across my scars. Once again, my stupid body rejects the simplest amusements. So, I make coffee. That’s one bit of pleasure that still works.
I don’t bother going downstairs and bothering Kasabian. He’s even drearier than me in the morning. Before he gets up and turns on the news or does something else to annoy me, I turn on the rest of a movie I started with Candy the other night: Amer. It’s a deconstruction of Italian giallo flicks. The directors tear it down to its essential elements—beats, images, violence, colors, sexual tension—but they do it almost wordlessly, like a silent movie. Just the thing for that time of day when words are still hard to come by.
I sip coffee and smoke, letting the movie run through to its end and one last little shock, then pick up my phone and thumb in Vidocq’s number. He picks up after a few rings.
“James, how nice to hear from you at this early hour. Is everything all right?” His voice is deep, the accent relentlessly French.
“Nothing’s wrong. Sometimes I’m actually up during daylight hours. I just thought if you were going to be around, I’d swing by and show you something that fell into my lap from Heaven.”
“Really? You must come immediately. Do not stop for coffee. I’ve made some better than your vile swill.”
He says it all like the friendliest headwaiter in L.A. See, I always notice the accent because it’s such an accomplishment. Eugène Vidocq has lived in the U.S. for around a hundred and fifty years. Any normal person would lose an accent after all that time. But Vidocq holds on to his like some grandma with the family photos. Nothing in the album means anything to anyone except her, which makes her hang on all the harder.
“I need to get dressed. I’ll be over in half an hour.”
“I doubt that on a weekend,” he says. “Let us say an hour.”
“Don’t rub it in.”
I used to walk across town through a shadow and come out by Vidocq’s front door in ten seconds. It feels like something that happened in another lifetime, but it’s really been less than three months.
I plow through the Hollywood traffic south and get to Vidocq’s place in just under an hour. L.A. people are obsessed with addresses, distance, and times between places. I used to worry about the first two, but now I’m just like every other asshole in this town. A clock watcher, knowing the hour I wasted getting here I’ll never see again. Everyone in L.A. is like this. It’s one of the town’s big secrets. Want to know why people drink and smoke so much weed? They want to wipe out the time slipping away from them. Want to know why people do coke and get on the pipe? They’re trying to outrun the clock. Like Superman at the end of the movie where he flies around the world fast enough to roll back time. That’s all anyone in L.A. wants. To get back the time they lost just fucking being in L.A. I can’t outrun time. I don’t even know if angels or Mr. Muninn can. Gods and regular schmucks, we’re all stuck on the same linear run from here to the end of time. Just some of us get to run a little longer. Like Vidocq. He’s immortal. He doesn’t worry about being stuck in traffic. He could spend a month waiting for a cab and not blink. Me, I have to wait eleven seconds at the bodega to buy coffee and I’m contemplating a murder/suicide pact with everyone in the store.
I take the old industrial elevator up to Vidocq’s floor in his building and knock on the door. He meets me at the door in a robe and slippers, holding a plate of crisp bacon slices. Vidocq has salt-and-pepper hair and a short trimmed beard. I put on actual people clothes and he’s just rolled out of the sack.
“I see why you wanted me to come to you.”
He looks down at himself for a moment.
“I couldn’t bear to dress myself this morning. Do you ever feel that way? One more morning, brushing your teeth, putting on your clothes. It can drive you mad. When I was alone, I went years without cutting my hair or beard. I looked like the Abdominal, Aminal … What do you call him?”
“The Abominable Snowman.”
“Yes. Him.”
“‘Yeti’ is an easier word.”
“Yes, but I prefer the other. It gives him a sinister dignity whereas Yeti makes him sound like just another animal.”
“He probably is just another animal. He’s got to know by now we’re looking for him. Three hot meals and a fresh pile of hay every day has got to beat running away and throwing your shit at hikers.”
“I suppose it comes down to who’s looking for you. Will the hunters study and appreciate you or do they simply want to dissect you? Likely a smart beast, he will be suspicious of us,” Vidocq says.
“Hey, don’t knock it. That’s how I feel every day.”
“As do I.”
“Then give me some coffee and let’s drink to that.”
He hands me a cup full of the black stuff. I hold it up and say, “To freaks everywhere.”
Vidocq holds up his mug.
“May you fly, walk, swim, or crawl for all eternity under the noses of our betters.”
“And if you can’t, at least get your own reality show. Sasquatch Hoarders. Or The Real Housewives of R’lyeh.”
We drink our coffee, satisfied that we’re the two cleverest people in the room.
He sips his coffee. Sets down the cup and the plate of bacon on his worktable.
“As I recall, you have something for me.”
“That I do.”
I set the box on the table near his food. Among his many interests, Vidocq happens to be a world-class alchemist. He was a good alchemist back in the day, but the extra two hundred years since then have given him plenty more practice.
He picks up the box. Looks it over top and bottom, then eyeballs it with a magnifying glass.
“Where did you get it?” he says.
“A dying angel brought it to me. Didn’t say what it is. Said he didn’t know. All I do know is that some angels like what’s inside it. He said the war in Heaven won’t end unless someone destroys it.”
“Dying angels. Wars. This does not fill me with joy.”
He sets the box back on the table and pushes back the lock. When that goes all right, he gets a long steel rod and carefully pushes open the top. I don’t blame him. I’ve been known to bring him things that catch fire.
When nothing explodes, he takes the vial from its padded case and holds it up to the light.
“The fluid is almost opaque, but not quite. As if there is some shifting something inside. I can’t tell what. Some debris? Sediment?”
He looks at me.
“Is it safe to open?”
“I have no idea. But if it blows up I don’t think the angel who gave it to me knew it would.”
“That will be a great comfort to the other residents if I set the building on fire or fill it with poison.”
I hadn’t thought of that last bit.
“You have any gas masks?”
He reaches under his worktable and comes out with something rubbery that looks like it’s a couple of wars past its prime.
“Just the one, I’m afraid,” he says.
“Story of my life. Fuck it. Let’s go. I’ll hold my breath.”
Vidocq gets a small, stumpy candle down from the top of a set of wooden shelves behind the table. He lights the candle with a paper match and the flame flickers a light green.
“As long as the flame stays this color, we’re safe,” he says, and puts on the gas mask.
I lean in close and shout, “You’re still wearing the mask, even though I don’t have one?”
He nods vigorously.
“Thanks,” I say. “It’s good to know you’re always there for me.”
I take the vial and unscrew the top. “The angel called this stuff black milk.”
And suddenly I know why. It smells like the curdled insides of a lizard-skin Hellion bovine with shit for blood and fish guts for bones. Even in the gas mask, Vidocq is choking. I get the top back on the bottle fast. Last night’s tamales are seriously considering making a break for it onto Vidocq’s nice rug.
Vidocq shakes his head. Takes the vial from my hand.
“No.”
He points to the candle. The flame is still pale green.
“See? The smell is unpleasant, but not deadly. We must persevere.”
With his other hand, he opens an old medical cabinet on his worktable. The cabinet doors swing apart like bird wings, revealing racks of potions and drawers for instruments.
He takes off the gas mask and pulls some potions from the cabinet. Pours a little of the black milk into a shallow Pyrex dish and screws the top back on. I put the vial back in the box, hoping it will kill some of the smell.
“Mind if I open a window?”
“Mmm,” he mumbles, already lost in the experiment, barely noticing I’m there. I crack a window, letting in the smoggy L.A. breeze.
Much better.
Vidocq uses a dropper to add tiny amounts of a purple potion to the black milk. I take one of his bacon slices and wait to see what happens next.
After almost a minute, he says, “Interesting.”
I look at the mess on the table.
“What’s interesting? I don’t see any difference.”
“That’s what’s interesting. Look closer. The two liquids remain separate. They won’t mix.”
“What does that mean?”
“I have no idea. Yet.”
He pours the mixture into a flask that’s connected to a series of glass tubes and other glass receptacles. As the liquid moves through the tubes, it separates back into black milk and the purple potion. He pours out the potion in the kitchen sink and swirls the milk in its flask.
“I would like to test it with red mercury,” he says. “But I’m out of it and it’s not easy to find these days.”
“What are you going to do?”
He sighs.
“Make some phone calls. Ask a few favors.”
“Did the test tell you anything?”
He crosses his arms, staring at the mystery goo.
“The potion I used is a very simple one. It separates other potions into their basic elements for study. But instead, the milk repelled it.”
“Meaning?”
“As I said, I have no idea. My greatest fear is that being angelic in origin, it might not react properly with any Earthly chemicals.”
“It could be Hellion.”
“True. But Hellions being fallen angels, the problem remains.”
And here we are again. Back to the same problem. I’m stuck in L.A. with no way to get to Hell, where I might find an angel that I could choke long enough to help me. I need to sit Kasabian down for a more serious talk.
Vidocq puts a drop of the milk on a glass slide and places it under a microscope with a PROPERTY OF UCLA sticker partly scraped off.
Among Vidocq’s other interests is burglary.
“Anything?” I say.
He shrugs.
“There’s movement within the fluid. Perhaps living organisms. Perhaps simply repellent elements. It’s too early to say with any certainty. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. I knew it wouldn’t be simple. Nothing with angels ever is. For all I know, this whole thing is just a prank. Now that he can’t get at us, let’s fuck with Sandman Slim. Maybe black milk is just an exploding cigar.”
“Please,” he says. “Until we know what this is, don’t say ‘exploding.’ It’s bad luck.”
“I didn’t know you believed in that kind of thing.”
“I believe in everything. It’s what frequently comes with age. We hope for wisdom, but we just end up with more uncertainty.”
“Well, you’re still the smartest guy I’ve ever met.”
“Merci.”
He stands aside and lets me look into his microscope. All I see is black sludge with tiny dots spinning into and around each other.
“I mean it,” I tell him. “I don’t know if I could make it two hundred years and stay sane.”
“Don’t underestimate yourself,” Vidocq says.
“Are you ever going to tell me how it happened?”
He goes back to the microscope and carefully removes the slide.
“It’s a long and not very pretty story.”
“My favorite kind.”
While he’s pouring the milk back into the flask, I reach for my coffee, but bump into his shoulder. The slide slips from his hand onto the worktable. Most soaks into the wood, but a black drop slops onto the side of the plate with bacon. When the strip of bacon comes in contact with another strip, it stiffens and flips into the air, convulsing when it lands, like a fish dying in the bottom of a boat. Each time the bacon touches another strip, that strip starts writhing and twisting too.
Vidocq slams a bell jar on top of the plate, trapping the meat circus underneath.
I look at him.
“Ever seen that before?”
“No. Never. It’s fascinating.”
“This is truly one of the most goddamned things I’ve ever seen. What do we do with the little bastards?”
“We wait and see what happens.”
“What if they don’t stop? What if we just invented immortal bacon?”
“One mystery at a time, my friend.”
“We can’t exactly Google ‘disposing of zombie thrash pork.’”
Vidocq puts his hands on a pile of old books next to the medical cabinet.
“This is my Google. I’ll find an answer for you. Don’t worry.”
“I know you will. But it’s going to lead to trouble. I can tell.”
He nods. “Profound mysteries have a way of leading to yet more mysteries.”
The bacon strips make little tinking sounds when they hit the glass dome.
“What do we do now?”
“Normally, it would be lovely to have you stay and chat, but you should go,” he says. “I have a lot of reading to do.”
“You sure you’re safe with that stuff around? Maybe I should take it and ditch it in the ocean or something.”
“You’ll do no such thing. It’s not often an old sorcerer gets to explore angelic puzzles. Leave this here with me. I’ll be fine.”
My phone buzzes. It’s a text from Abbot. He wants me to come over tonight. So much for “Take the weekend, Stark.”
“Okay. But call me if things get any weirder. In fact, call me no matter what. If these bastards are still hopping around tonight, I want to know about it.”
“Of course. Of course,” he says, leading me to the door. “But now you must go and I must look for answers.”
At the door I say, “I got some of the milk on your table. I might have wrecked it. I’ll pay for a new one.”
“Perhaps you did and perhaps you didn’t. In any case, I’m the thief, not you. If I need a new table, I will get one like that,” he says, snapping his fingers.
“I at least owe you a drink for killing your breakfast.”
“That I will accept.”
He opens the door and I go out into the hall. I start to leave when something bothers me.
“Seriously, what’s the trick to living two hundred years? How do you do it?”
“It’s easy,” he says. “I’m not two hundred. I no longer believe in the past. Each morning when I awake, I’m newly born. From now until the sun burns out, I will never be more than one day old.”
“I’ll call you about the drink,” I say, and go down to the car, not sure if what Vidocq said was the smartest or saddest thing I’ve ever heard.
“I’M SORRY TO call you in like this,” says Abbot. “But the whole thing fell together quickly.”
“What is it? Some kind of emergency meeting?”
Abbot hesitates.
“More of a cocktail party.”
“Seriously?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“I used to be the Devil, you know. I didn’t have to put up with this kind of shit.”
“Maybe you should have kept that job, then.”
“Nah. I look lousy with horns.”
“Is that really what he looks like?”
“No. He looks more like, well, you.”
“Should I be flattered?”
“Very.”
“Then I’ll take the compliment.”
Abbot ushers me into the living room area on the boat. I was here once before, when I first met him. The room is impeccably decorated—a Southern California manor house—swaying gently on the Pacific. I have a hard time picturing the boat ever moving much, even in a tsunami. Nature wouldn’t dare spill the augur’s coffee over something as silly as a volcano.
“No problem. Chihiro is learning to play ‘Pipeline,’ so I’m all on my lonesome.”
“Playing pipeline. Is that slang for something I should know about?”
I put my hands in my pockets, not wanting to touch anything, afraid I’m going to taint his Beach Boys Taj Mahal with my grubby paws.
“Candy is getting guitar lessons is all. And I’m here when I could be curled up with a good western.”
He points a finger at me.
“Right. But there’s good news. You don’t have to talk to anybody or be nice to anyone.”
“That is good news.”
“In fact, as far as anyone at the party knows, you won’t even be here. I want to put you in the back with Willem, my head of security. You and he will monitor the meeting on the boat’s surveillance system.”
“I came all this way to sit in a broom closet with a hall monitor?”
He comes over and puts an arm around my shoulder, leading me down a deck into the bowels of the boat. The decor is simpler down here since it’s mostly a utilitarian space for the staff, but it’s still nicer than anywhere I’ve ever lived. He takes me forward until I figure that we’re right under the living room. There’s a door with a keypad. The sign on the door says AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
As he punches in a code on the keypad I say, “This is a yacht, right?”
“Right.”
The lock clicks open.
I look around.
“This thing is huge. Is it a boat or a ship?”
“A boat. As far as I know all yachts are boats.”
“Then what’s a ship?”
“A very big boat.”
“But this is a very big boat. Why isn’t it a ship?”
He looks at me for a second.
“I can see how you’d make a good Devil.”
“Sorry. Doors like this just make me nervous.”
Abbot pushes it open.
“You’re not under arrest. You’re with me now, remember? If anything, you get to arrest other people.”
“Terrific. Now I’m a cop. All of my worst fears have come true.”
“You’ll do fine.”
Inside, the room is dark except for a bank of video monitors that ring the walls. I don’t know how many rooms this bucket has, but it looks like Abbot has every square inch of the place covered. I go over to get a better look at the setup.
“You have as many trust issues as I do. I feel so much closer to you now.”
A guy sitting at the control console turns around and gives me the eyeball. He has a cop mustache but a tailored shirt. His gold tie clip has three Greek letters on it. This guy hasn’t been in college in fifteen years, but he still flies his frat colors. Audsley Ishii used to do that. It isn’t love at first sight for either of us.
“Willem, this is Stark,” says Abbot. “Stark. Willem.”
Willem holds out his hand and I shake it. His heartbeat races a little. It’s obvious by his smile that he thinks I’m the scum they scrape off the sides of this boat, but he stays professional and says, “Welcome aboard.”
“Thanks, Willem. I appreciate the hospitality.”
That confuses him. But his heartbeat slows. The guy is the real thing. He gets excited, but has enough training to get it under control fast. I can’t see where he keeps his gun, so my guess is it’s strapped to his ankle and he can get it out as fast as he can corral his heart. He’d be a good guy to have on your side in a fight.
Trouble is, I don’t think he thinks we’re on the same side.
Abbot goes to the monitors and points to a cluster of six that cover the living room and surrounding corridors.
“This is the area I want you to concentrate on. People are coming over for drinks in a little while. Some of them might be Wormwood. I want you to listen in case someone says anything that might give them away. Some are from the council, so you’ll know them. But try to learn as many of the other faces as you can.”
I look at the monitors then at Abbot.
“Down here, I’m useless. Up there, I’d be able to tell you who’s packing, who’s a straight arrow, and who’s lying.”
Abbot smiles broadly.
“They’re all liars. I’m the augur and they want to make me happy. Also, they all want to one up each other’s family. They’ll say anything that suits their interests.”
“Tell me again why you need me when you have Willem over there?”
“You’ve met at least some of Wormwood’s higher-ups. That puts you ahead of either of us. Look for those faces. Look and listen for anything familiar. If nothing comes up, then I wasted your evening and I’ll send you home with some cake.”
“You didn’t say anything about cake earlier. I’m completely on board now.”
“Good. Willem knows the system down here. He’ll be running the electronics. All you have to do is watch the show. I know you like movies. Pretend it’s My Dinner with André or something.”
“I prefer A Fistful of Dollars, but I get your drift.”
“Good. Okay. I have a couple of things to do. You two should get acquainted. The guests will be arriving shortly. If you want anything to eat or drink, you can have something sent down.”
I take the seat next to Willem.
“Very comfy. I love flying first class.”
“I’ll see you afterward.”
He leaves and I watch him go, crisscrossing from monitor to monitor on his way to check on the caviar fountain or corn-dog buffet, whatever it is heavy Sub Rosa clans dine on with their pope.
I turn around and Willem is looking at me.
I say, “You do this kind of thing a lot?”
“Sometimes it’s me on the console. Sometimes it’s someone else. The work gets done.”
“And no one is down here playing Ms. Pac-Man or Tetris while the blue bloods feed at the trough?”
He punches a few buttons, changing angles on some of the cameras.
“No. That’s more your speed, from what I’ve heard.”
“Really? Palace gossip about a small-town boy like me? The folks back in Arkansas will be so proud.”
He keeps at the console, not looking at me.
“No gossip. Just facts. I have friends on the force.”
“LAPD? They practically invented gossip. They’re worse than Hedda Hopper. They’re like the mean girls in a high school lunchroom. If they don’t know the truth, they’ll make something up just to see if they can make you cry.”
“That’s not true and you know it.”
I lean my elbows on the edge of the console. Look up at the screens.
“I don’t know what I know sometimes. It’s a funny world. I saw bacon dance this afternoon. You ever see that? A whole plate. They could practically do a Busby Berkeley number.”
Willem draws in a breath and lets it out.
“What do you say we don’t talk for a while? Guests are starting to arrive.”
“Is there a red carpet? Will we know who they’re wearing?”
Willem ignores me.
THE GATHERING IS exactly what I was afraid of. A CIA torture session of wine, cheese, and tony chitchat. Maybe eating Brie just makes people stupid. I never trusted the stuff myself. Soft cheese is a reminder that all cheese is just milk that crawled into a ditch to die, then some lunatic came along, spread the corpse on a saltine, and invented hors d’oeuvres. Now people pay heroin prices for stuff they could make themselves if they only had the guts to strap a pint of whole milk to their engine block for a few days. Sure it might come out a little greasy, but that’ll just shoot the stuff through your system faster. No need to absorb any actual calories. This is L.A., where the food is prettier than the movie stars and twice as untouchable.
I look at Willem.
“How do you sit here like this without committing ritual suicide?”
He adjusts a camera angle.
“It’s my job.”
“Do you like it?”
“Of course. It’s an honor to work for the augur.”
I can’t see his eyes, so I can’t tell if he’s lying.
“Sitting in a stuffy room pushing buttons. I get it. I used to talk that way the last time I worked for a bigwig.”
He does a sarcastic little snort laugh.
“When did you ever work for someone respectable?”
“Respectable? Never. I used to work for Azazel, one of Lucifer’s generals. I guess I didn’t really ‘work’ for him. I was more of a slave. Anyway, I talked the way you do all the time. ‘What a great boss. What a great gig. I’m the luckiest boy in Candy Land.’”
He looks at me and says, “Bullshit,” but he takes his time about it. Savoring the moment.
I lean into the glow of the monitors to light up my face.
“You think I got these scars playing Jenga?”
“I’ve seen a hundred cons with faces like yours. You’re nothing special.”
That’s the second time in a couple of days someone said I look like a con. One more time and I’m getting a haircut.
I take the pause in the heartbreaking verbal abuse to look over the guests. A lot of old faces from the council meetings. I can’t remember most of their names, but I could find them in a crowd if I had to. A lot of new faces too.
Beautiful people. Perfect clothes. Teeth like CG snowscapes. Breasts lifted. Jowls tightened. You can tell the Sub Rosa men from the civilians because the civilians have hair plugs, while the balding Sub Rosa have hoodoo and self-loathing. I know I’m supposed to be listening for Wormwood giveaways, but I’d rather machine-gun the entire room than listen to any more chatter about private jets, vacation homes, or Arabian horses. I’d do it too. Wipe out the whole party, but Wormwood probably has bets on it and a mass slaughter would line someone’s pockets, so, for now, everyone is safe. As for why Abbot called me here, I haven’t heard one out-of-place word all evening.
“I’d say this whole thing is pretty much a bust. How ’bout you, Willem? Picking up any supervillain vibes from this bunch?”
“That’s not what I’m here for.”
“What are you here for?”
“To operate the equipment and to keep an eye on you.”
“I have been falling asleep at meetings recently. Do you ever have sleeping problems, Willem? I do. Nightmares and migraines. I found a cure, but I’m not sure it’s healthy. Not a keeper. What do you do to relax, Willem?”
He takes his hands from the console and wraps them together like he’s praying or wants to keep from punching me.
“Stop saying my name all the time.”
“Have I been? How rude. Say, Abbot said we could have stuff sent down here. What do you say to a couple of aperitifs?”
He shakes his head.
“Coffee is all you’re allowed.”
“Ouch. Of everything you’ve said tonight, that’s the most hurtful.”
Willem turns to face me. It’s the first time since we shook hands a couple of hours ago. A giveaway that this won’t be a lasting romance.
He says, “The augur sees something in you, so I’ve been trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. But you come in here with these games and attitude, and worst of all, this Hell bullshit. Is that supposed to scare me? Am I supposed to be impressed with your lies or, more likely, your delusions?”
“I know some card tricks too.”
“See? That’s what I’m talking about. You have nothing to say. Nothing to contribute except noise. If it was up to me, you wouldn’t just be barred from this boat. I’d keep you out of the whole marina.”
“Luckily, it’s not up to you, so we get to spend this quality time together.”
He turns back to the console.
“Just be quiet and try to do at least a little piece of your job.”
I watch the screen for a few minutes. The guests mingle. Abbot presses the flesh. Spends a few minutes with Tuatha Fortune, the wife of the previous augur. Waiters bring in drinks and food and take out the remains. The most exciting thing that happens is when a waiter runs out of shrimp puffs and Charlie Anpu, the graying, liquored-up patriarch of a heavyweight Sub Rosa family, gets bent out of shape about it. Like the poor-slob waiter is supposed to bend over and shoot seafood out of his ass. What a creep. My hoodoo is good enough that I could probably do it, but I hate to show off at parties.
I pull out my phone and check the time. More than two hours down here in Glitter Gulch. The best night of my life.
“So, Willem. How long were you a cop?”
“I told you to stop saying my name.”
“It’s a simple question. How long were you on the job?”
He shakes his head.
“You don’t get to ask about my personal life.”
I point to one of the screens. The augur laughs at a billionaire’s dirty limerick or maybe the guy does a mean Ed Sullivan impression. Anyway, the laugh looks real, but I can see Abbot’s eyes and he’s dying inside. That makes two of us.
“Abbot seems to be having a good time.”
“He’s doing his job. And he’s not the one you’re supposed to be watching.”
“I’m watching plenty. But I can’t hear a thing with you talking all the time.”
He freezes for a minute, but doesn’t say anything.
I take it back. I don’t want to machine-gun the party. I want to find the fault line that will drop California into the ocean and toss a nuke down there. No one on this boat, me included, will benefit the human race by living one more day. Let’s just blow the whole shebang into the Pacific and give Nevada a shot at some prime beachfront property.
I look at other monitors. Waiters go in and out of the kitchen. Security patrols the walkway to the boat. A seagull swoops low and shits on the deck. Lucky bird.
“Did you know Audsley Ishii?”
Willem nods. “Ishii is a good man.”
“And you don’t like me because I got him fired.”
“I don’t like you because of who and what you are.”
I swing my chair around to face him.
“Enlighten me, Willem. What am I?”
He turns to me.
“You’re nothing but a loudmouth hustler. You have the skills to watch the room? Bullshit. You’re some hotshot killer? Bullshit. You’ve been to Hell? That’s the biggest bullshit of all. But it’s a nice line to the right people. The kind of unhinged street trash you spend your time with.”
I check the time on my phone again. I swear time has stopped completely.
“Ishii wants to kill me. Did you know that?”
“Good luck to him, I say,” Willem says.
“But I work for Abbot.”
“I know.”
“Which means you sort of work for me. I mean, as part of security it’s your job to fall on a grenade for anyone on the council.”
“I know.”
“That means me.”
“Unfortunately.”
I lean back.
“Still like your job?”
“I like my job fine. I just want you to stop talking.”
“You got it, pal.”
We watch the party for a while. The monitors hurt my eyes. I’m afraid they’re going to give me another Trotsky headache.
“Audsley was a friend of mine,” says Willem.
“You need better friends.”
“It really would be a black mark on the whole security team’s record if he was to kill you.”
Abbot looks up into one of the cameras and twirls his finger a little, saying it’s almost time to wrap things up.
Willem zooms in on him.
“The thing to remember about security is we’re only human. We have good days and bad. If Audsley was to show up …” Willem shrugs. “It could be one of our bad days.”
He grins at me and I grin back, but his smile is bigger because I know he means every word of it. Some people just can’t take a joke.
AS THE GUESTS straggle out, Abbot comes into the surveillance room.
“What do you think?” he says. “Did you see or hear anything?”
I shrug.
“It was all manicures and shrimp puffs down here. Did you pick up anything, Willem?”
“I’m not the Wormwood expert,” he says.
“Still, did you notice anything unusual?” says Abbot.
“No, sir.”
“Me neither.”
I pick a thread off my coat.
“I think you owe me cake, boss.”
“No,” he says. “Charles Anpu. Did you see him?”
“He tried to strangle a waiter, so yeah.”
“At council meetings, he’s been pushing us to contribute to Regis International. There’s a good chance they’re connected to Wormwood, which means that he might be connected too.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“I can’t say.”
“I didn’t know the augur had confidential informants.”
“Then you don’t know much about politics.”
“No. I guess I don’t.”
He leans on the edge of the console.
“Then trust me. I know people who know people and they seldom steer me wrong.”
“Okay. Say you’re right. Why don’t you just have Willem and his boy band grab him?”
Abbot shakes his head.
“It doesn’t work like that. Even for the augur, making accusations against a family without solid proof would be dangerous. It could start a civil war.”
That sounds about right for the Sub Rosa clans. They’re like the Hatfields and McCoys, but with helipads on the roof.
I look up at Abbot.
“What do you want me to do about it?”
“Go. Follow them. Sneak into the Anpu estate and see what you can find out.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
Abbot holds up his hands, frustrated.
“I know you have powers. You can walk through walls and shadows.”
Willem does his snort laugh.
“Not anymore,” I tell him. “I lost that trick when I saved the world a few months back. Remember when I did that, Willem?”
He plays with his console, ignoring me.
“All right. But you can tail someone. I know that,” Abbot says.
“Your security can’t even handle that?”
“I can’t be seen to be directly involved.”
I take out a Malediction.
“This is my punishment for falling asleep at meetings, isn’t it?”
“You’re not allowed to smoke in here,” says Willem.
“Don’t worry. I’m leaving.”
I look at the monitors. Get up. The boat looks pretty deserted.
“They’ve got a head start. You have any idea where they’re headed?”
“Musso and Frank’s,” Abbot says. “Get there and stay on them. Follow them wherever they go. If you can’t get into their home, well, we’ll figure something else out.”
“What kind of car am I looking for?”
“A silver Rolls-Royce Phantom.”
“Lucky Charlie.”
I hold out my hand to Willem.
“It’s been a little bit of Heaven spending these hours with you. Tell Audsley hello from me.”
Willem shakes my hand and says, “I’ll give him your regards.”
“Now, Stark,” says Abbot. “Time to earn your money.”
We go upstairs together. The sea air is crisp when we get on deck. I take a deep breath.
“There are worse places to tail someone than Musso and Frank’s. I could use a martini.”
“Not a chance,” says Abbot. “Stay outside and watch from there. Inside, you’re a bit …”
“Noticeable.”
“Exactly.”
I head for the walkway leading to the pier.
I call over my shoulder, “You still owe me cake.”
“Go,” shouts Abbot. “Now.”
I wave and head to the parking lot. Slide into the Catalina and sit there for a minute. Charlie might have a head start on me, but if he’s going into Hollywood he’s going to get stuck in the same traffic I am. That’s going to cut his lead pretty thin. Assuming he took the freeway, if I take surface streets, I might just beat him to Musso’s.
I point the Catalina inland, away from Abbot, Willem, and all their upper-crust intrigue. They’ll be talking about me for a while. Abbot getting an employee report from his guard dog. I know what Willem’s going to say, but I wish I could hear Abbot. The guy hasn’t done me wrong yet, but sending me after the Anpu family alone, I can’t help wondering if I’m being set up for something.
THE MUSSO & FRANK Grill is legendary even by Hollywood standards. It opened in 1919 and has hosted more movie stars, literary types, producers, directors, and starry-eyed wannabes than all the movie studios that have ever existed. Back in the day, Charlie Chaplain and Rudolph Valentino raced horses down Hollywood Boulevard to the grill to see who had to pay. Rita Hayworth, Bogey, and Bacall drank there. Orson Welles wrote there in his favorite booth. Dashiell Hammett, William Faulkner, and Raymond Chandler might have scribbled something, but mostly came to get wrecked. Musso & Frank’s has always been big with star-struck Sub Rosas too. For the classier families and the hicks with money, it’s their Bamboo House of Dolls, but without the jukebox.
Parking on Hollywood Boulevard is ridiculous almost any night, but it’s deadly on the weekends. I dump the Catalina in a white zone across the street and pray the LAPD is too busy chasing jaywalkers to tow it.
Musso’s has a parking lot around the back, which is great if you’re eating there, but not so great if you want to look for a particular car. If this was any other place in town, I might be able to blend in with the crowd and wander into the back. But being called a con twice in just a couple of days is a reminder that I don’t look like most people and would stand out like a pink unicorn if I tried to get back there. Of course, I could always cause a distraction. Use hoodoo to blow something up. But this doesn’t seem like that kind of assignment. I light a Malediction and wander by the front of the restaurant a couple of times, hoping I’ll get lucky and catch Charlie waiting for a table. But I don’t usually get lucky.
Sure enough, I can’t see anything but tourists.
With nothing better to do, I go across the street and wait between an army-surplus store and a tattoo parlor, hoping to catch Charlie going into the restaurant or heading home. I check the time and settle in for a tedious wait. No matter how long Charlie sits in his backroom booth swilling martinis, I’d rather be out with the hustlers and tourists on Hollywood Boulevard than stuck watching Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous in Willem’s man cave.
I smoke a Malediction, then another. Down some Aqua Regia from my flask and start on my third cigarette when who comes staggering out of Musso’s but the birthday boy himself. Which is a little surprising. No one goes in there to have just one drink. Unless Charlie teleported here, he can’t have been inside very long. Why the hell go to all the trouble of navigating Hollywood on a weekend night just to pop into Musso’s if he wasn’t going to stay?
Charlie misses a step and staggers against a blonde young enough to be his daughter, but expensive-looking enough to probably be his mistress. When he stumbles, he drops something. Jean Harlow leans him against the restaurant’s front wall and goes to retrieve whatever he lost.
That’s when I start running. And it’s when I stop because of the bus that almost turns me into a human speed bump. But the pause actually works in my favor. When I get onto the sidewalk, Harlow is leading Charlie toward the parking lot and I get a good look at what she’s holding. It’s a box.
It’s just like the one Karael gave me.
Charlie fucking Anpu didn’t stop by for a martini. He came here to pick up some black milk. For what? Is he going to do the bacon trick for Jean?
While they head around the side of the restaurant for the parking lot, I run back to the Catalina. White zones are supposed to be for passenger loading and unloading, mostly during certain hours. Me, I chose one that’s the twenty-four-hour variety. It doesn’t matter. There’s a ticket on the windshield when I reach the car. I snatch it off and cram it in my pocket, gun the car, and pull the most idiotic, dangerous, and unsubtle U-turn since Junior Johnson was still a stone-cold rumrunner.
What the hell is a creep like Charlie doing with angel poison? And where did he get it? Are rich Sub Rosas keeping celestial beings in the backyard as pets these days? There’s no way I am letting these assholes out of my sight.
I double-park a couple of doors down from Musso’s, waiting for the Rolls to emerge from the lot. Stopping does not endear me to the other drivers on Hollywood Boulevard. People shout at me in a fascinating variety of languages. They give me the finger. Threaten to call the cops. I want to shout at the morons that I’m trying to save their souls, but all they want is for me to move my ass.
Without the Room, this is what I’m reduced to: sucking up abuse and dodging thrown coffee cups.
Soon the Rolls-Royce appears from the side of the restaurant, easing its way into traffic. I don’t want to close in on Charlie and Jean too fast. I want them to feel safe and anonymous, so I gently lift my foot off the brake and let the car roll forward.
I get about twenty feet when the Catalina slams to a stop. It feels like I hit a brick wall.
I should be so lucky.
Because it’s much worse. There’s an angel in front of me with one armored boot on my front bumper, and she looks pissed. No point hesitating. I floor the accelerator, hoping to knock her out of the way, but she leans into the car and I just end up burning rubber. I let up on the pedal, throw the car into park, but leave it running. By the time I get out, a crowd is gathering around us. Even on Hollywood Boulevard, a six-foot-plus woman wearing armored boots stopping a muscle car is something people will notice.
She slams her fists onto the Catalina’s hood and screams, “Give me the box.”
I stab a finger at her.
“Hey, sister. You dent my car, you’re paying for it.”
She punches the hood again. I look past her. The Rolls is out of sight, disappeared into the general flow of traffic.
“Return it to me,” she shouts.
“You want the box?”
I point past her.
“It’s going that way in a silver Rolls. Why don’t you puff out your wings and flutter after it? You’ll love Charlie.”
She comes around the side of the car.
“Not that one. The one you stole.”
“Guess again. It was a gift from one of your kind. Ain’t that a kick in the teeth?”
I shouldn’t have said that last part. It gives her ideas. She lunges for me, but even though I’m only half angel, I’m as fast as her. I dodge her and slide across the hood of a Camry aiming for the curb. With one hand, the angel shoves the Camry out of the way, smashing it into an SUV full of kids in soccer uniforms. What sounds like all the banshees in Hell letting loose at once fills the street as the kids in the van completely fucking melt down. The boulevard crowd, who’d been digging the show up until then—probably thinking we were a publicity stunt for a shitty action movie—starts running at the sound of breaking glass and the kids wailing.
I can’t outrun an angel, but I’m about as strong as she is, so I can sure as hell hurt one.
It takes a couple of kicks to knock over the parking meter. When she comes for me, I swing it at her head like a baseball bat. She doesn’t even try to get out of the way. Takes the full force on the side of her head. The blow knocks her down, but I can tell I haven’t really hurt her. When she gets up, her hands and shoulders are shaking, but not from fear or pain. Her eyes are rimmed in dark circles. Her lips and fingernails are cracked. She clicks her lower jaw against the upper, then bares stained teeth at me. I swear, if she wasn’t an angel, I’d peg her for a meth head.
She has scars on her cheeks and her armor is dented and battered. She’s seen some heavy action, so my parking-meter stunt isn’t going to impress her. Before she can come at me again, I bark some Hellion hoodoo and the car she’s leaning against explodes in flames, knocking her through a camera-store window. Now the last few hardcore cases in the street abandon their cars and head for higher ground.
When she comes out of the store her face is singed on one side, which doesn’t improve her looks or her mood. But the flames don’t intimidate her. She sticks her face into the burning car, takes a breath, and exhales a goddamn wall of fire in my direction.
I dive between a couple of parked cars, letting the flames pass over my head.
Who the hell is she? She’s sure as shit acting like a Hellion, but fallen angels are trapped Downtown. They can’t come up here. That means she’s come here from Upstairs, which is infinitely worse. It means that whatever angel war is going on in God’s backyard, I’m now part of it.
I’m still hunkered down behind a car when it splits in two in a shower of heat and sparks. With her free hand, the angel shoves the rear end of the car out of the way while holding her Gladius, her angelic sword of fire, in the other hand. I get up and manifest mine. She twitches. Opens and closes her eyes like she’s not sure what she’s seeing. However, it’s not the Gladius that has her vibrating, it’s whatever is wrong with her. But that’s not my problem. She bellows and runs at me, her Gladius held high. I didn’t want to be here before and now I’d like a big fat shadow to disappear into, only I can’t, so I bellow right back at her and charge like the stupidest bull who’s ever been stuck on a matador’s sword.
When her Gladius crashes into mine it sends a shock wave up my arms. She’s goddamn strong. Maybe too strong for me. The fiery explosion from Gladiuses colliding blows out the windows on a nearby shop, setting a row of mannequins and Valentine decorations on fire. An alarm goes off. She doesn’t notice and comes at me, thundering chopping blows down at my head. I get my Gladius up and hold her off, but she’s not stopping, deep into some kind of berserker rage.
I back up under the strength of her blows, but I can’t keep playing defense. When she rears back for one last killing chop, I roll out of the way and tag her in the right arm.
But it doesn’t do anything.
I only caught her with the tip of the Gladius and her armor deflected most of the blow. Still, she’s getting wilder and fighting sloppy. If I can hold on long enough, with luck she’ll do something stupid.
The problem is, she’s taking her sweet time about it. Neither one of us is landing a killing blow, but she manages to get close to my right arm, setting my coat sleeve on fire. I don’t have time to put it out as she charges in again. I aim under her sword arm, hoping that if I can catch her at the right moment, the tightened chain mail will give way. I get the shot in, but the mail doesn’t budge. She smiles, thinking she’s winning, and I’m afraid she might be right. In the second she takes to gloat, I get to wave my arm enough to put out my burning sleeve. Something is going to give here soon and I’m afraid it might be me.
When she comes at me again, I feel the parking meter under my foot. I kick it at her and it glances off her left knee, slowing her just long enough to pull the Colt Peacemaker I keep in my waistband at the back. Normally, shooting bullets at an armored angel is a bigger waste of time than teaching algebra to cats, but I don’t use ordinary bullets. I dip mine in Spiritus Dei, a rare and excruciatingly expensive potion. It can cure wounds when used right, and when it isn’t, it will kill pretty much anything that walks, crawls, or flies. I don’t know what the bullets will do to angelic armor, but desperate times call for stupid choices and I’m the world champion of those.
I fire three times right into her heart. The bullets hitting the celestial armor sound like someone smashing a church bell with a sledgehammer. The bad news is, while the bullets dent her armor, none get through. She takes a step back, realizes what I did, and laughs at me. I’ll admit it. That hurts a little. It also leaves her open, though, so I shoot her where she isn’t armored. The first shot rips off part of her right ear. The second goes through her cheek. The third bullet goes straight through her eye. She staggers, goes down on one knee. There’s no time to see if she’s playing possum. I charge her.
Even hurt, she’s still strong and partially deflects my blow, but I spin my Gladius around and rake it across the side of her throat.
I don’t know what kind of vitamins they have in Heaven, but even wounded, she looks like the berserker in her is making a comeback. She lunges at me, but she’s slow and she knows it. She has one hand to her throat, but she’s leaking blood down the front of her armor. I get ready to move in again, but before I can take two steps, she hammers her Gladius into the sidewalk, splitting open the pavement. I go down flat on my ass, but manage to keep my Gladius up to block her next blow, only there isn’t one.
The angel staggers back and her Gladius flickers out. Then she does the one thing I’ve never seen an angel do in front of civilians. She rolls back her shoulders, allowing her enormous wings to sprout from under her armor.
She points a shaky finger at me and rasps, “You aren’t part of this, Abomination. Give me the box.”
“How about we go to Musso’s instead? Martinis are on me.”
She flaps her wings and lifts from the cracked street.
“There will be others coming for you,” she says.
I nod. “There always are. You should get going. It looks like you’re running a quart low.”
With her hand still at her throat, she pumps her wings hard and banks over the Egyptian Theatre, disappearing into the starless Hollywood sky.
Like I said, it’s usually a bad move for angels to reveal themselves like that on a street in front of dumb-ass mortals, but after our little slap fight, I don’t think it matters much. However, with her gone, I’m feeling a bit naked and exposed. I might be fast and strong, but lousy nephilim like me, we don’t have wings. And I can’t disappear into a shadow anymore. I let my Gladius go out, dive into the Catalina, and hit the accelerator, using the steel nose of the beast to shove the lighter modern plastic cars out of the way. In a few seconds, I see a clear spot between the abandoned cars and blast through it. I take the corner on two wheels and keep going.
My heart feels like it’s gone twelve rounds with Mechagodzilla and my burned arm hurts like part of me has been deep-fried. Why didn’t she set fire to my Kissi arm? That thing is pretty much everything-proof. But no, she had to get my meat arm instead. If I didn’t know better I’d swear there was no God. But I do know better and the worst I can truly say is that I wish he was better at his job.
I picture the angel flapping into the sky like an armored goose and wonder how many traffic, store security, and ATM cameras caught our square dance. LAPD already has video of me stealing cars. Now they’re going to have shots of me playing laser tag with a celestial tweaker. Nothing I can do about it now.

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