Читать книгу The Sandman Slim Series Books 1-4 - Richard Kadrey - Страница 12

THE BURNS ON my hands and face are gone, but my chest is a Jackson Pollock mess of black and purple bruises. Every time I take a breath, the tissue around Kasabian’s bullets feels like someone is trying to check my oil level with a cattle prod. If I’m still alive when this is over, I’m definitely going to see Kinski.

My phone is beside me, blinking. I thumb the on button and find a text message from Cherry, with the address of a little taco place called No Mames on Western Avenue and a time when she wants to meet. The good news is that I have a few hours to get cleaned up and pull myself together. I want a cigarette and a drink, but I can’t smoke in the shower (trust me, I’ve tried), and if I started drinking now, I’m fairly certain that my brain would finally give up, get a new roommate, and move to Redondo Beach without me.

I can still feel Josef’s fingers inside me. I dreamed about that room in the back of the Nazi playhouse. And the arena in Hell. About the black and empty creature that Lucifer once ordered to leave the arena. For all I know, it could have been Josef or one of the legion I sensed was there inside his body with him. If it even was a body. When he split open, his insides felt more like an empty portal than a real entity. I don’t want to ever meet him or any of his friends again.

I strip down to take a shower and see that I’ve ruined another set of clothes. This time it isn’t my fault. Those Nazis owe me a new pair of jeans for shoving me out of that car. I’ll have to go collect on that sometime. That will be fun.

The shower feels so good I almost faint. I can’t get over how these little things still thrill me. If I was the spiritual type, being so pleased by little pleasures would mean that I was one of those penitent saints who live in a cave and only eat gruel once a week. In my case, it’s my secret shame that the most exciting thing I can think of is clean socks.

After I get cleaned up, I put on the last pair of unshredded jeans I own. I put on the trashed motocross jacket figuring it will keep tourists from asking directions to Disneyland.

None of my guns will fit under the jacket without sending waves of pain through my body. I don’t think Cherry is going to get cute about anything, but if she does, the knife ought to be enough to take her down. I take off the Veritas and toss it. Should I go? No words this time. Just the image of a winged bug on a small hill. A fly on shit. That’s how I’m attracted to these things. In Hellion speak, it means that the answer to the question is inevitable, so why bother asking? It’s right. Why bother?

THE GRILLED FISH tacos at No Mames aren’t half bad. The place is minimal inside. A few folding tables and cheap white plastic lawn chairs. It’s a pleasantly anonymous atmosphere. I eat three tacos and drink strong black coffee and wait.

And wait. When Cherry is officially an hour late, I go outside for a smoke. (I know she’s officially late because Allegra told me that the time on my phone is set by a goddamn satellite thousands of miles up in space. Apparently, while I was Downtown, people decided that they needed to know the exact time on Neptune.) I call Cherry every ten minutes for the next half hour. I text her. Nothing. Finally, I get fed up with the car exhaust and the rancid pot smoke from the dealer by the pay phone. Cherry probably grew some brains in the night and hopped freight out of town. Smart move.

I was too tired to steal a car on the way over, so I scan the traffic for a cab. A Yellow and a Veteran’s show up a minute later, and I start waving at them. The Veteran’s cuts across two lanes, aiming right at me. When it’s one lane away and about to turn into the curb, three black Ford SUVs come blasting around it from behind and cut it off. The middle one pulls up in front of me and a tall man in a dark blue suit and tie and white shirt steps out, flashing a badge. It’s one of the two men in suits who rode the elevator at the Bradbury Building with Vidocq, Allegra, and me.

“Excuse me, sir,” he says in a West Texas drawl. “I’m U.S. Marshal Larson Wells. There’s a Homeland Security matter that we need to speak to you about.”

I should have known something was up when I saw three Ford vans rolling down the street together. Is there any other time you see so many expensive American vehicles in one place? It’s always a presidential motorcade or a bust. Who else would buy those rolling tugboats when they’re so easy to steal? American cars are like condoms. Use them once and throw them away.

I step back and reach for my knife. The van doors swing open wide. It’s bright out and all I can see inside are silhouettes. There are at least six of them and I bet every one of them has a gun pointed at me. I’m not exactly in shape to get shot fifty times right now. I bring my hand forward and hold it up. Nothing palmed there. Everybody stay cool.

Wells takes my arm and leads me to the middle van. Just before I step inside, he slaps cuffs on my wrists in one smooth motion, like maybe he’s done this before. He pushes me inside and joins me in the rear seat, keeping himself between the door and me. All three vans shoot straight down Western, turn right on Beverly, and keep going.

“Is this about those library fines? I swear I meant to pay them, but I was ten at the time and had a lousy credit rating.” The marshals in the front ignore me. Wells checks his watch and looks out the window. I pull on the cuffs. There’s barely any give. I might be able to break them and get them off, but not without shattering bones and peeling most of the skin off my hands. “For a Sub Rosa hit squad, you hide it well. I’m not picking up any magic vibes. I don’t see a binding circle or any killing charms. Did you hide them in the headliner?” I reach up and touch the vinyl, feeling for lumps or ridges that might give away hidden evil eye booby traps.

Wells snaps, “Don’t touch that.” He’s still not looking at me. “And the Sub Rosa can kiss my ass. I don’t work for pixies and necrophiliacs.”

He says “pixie” the way a redneck says “faggot.”

I say, “I think you mean ‘necromancers.’”

“It’s all the same to me, Merlin. A bunch of middle-age Goths playing with Ouija boards, and talking to spooks and fairies. Or playing Martha Stewart with their Easy-Bake Oven potion kits.”

“You keep bad-mouthing them like that, one of those pixies is going to turn your guts to banana pudding with one hard look. Or don’t you believe in that kind of thing?”

“Oh, I believe. I just think those absinthe sippers are a joke. Half the Sub Rosa are out-of-their-mind party animals. The other half dress up like the Inquisition and have committee meetings on how you pixies should live and behave around normal humans. You people are all either drug addicts or the PTA with wands.”

“They sound like a lot more fun than I remember.”

“I bet they’re in love with you, boy. You must have missed the memo about keeping a low profile.”

“If you’re not Sub Rosa, tell me why I shouldn’t be killing you right now.”

Wells finally turns and looks at me, giving me his best El Paso squint, trying to drill a hole in my head with his eyes.

“Because if I shoot you, you’re not going to hop up and decapitate me. Just because I don’t work with the Sub Rosa doesn’t mean that I think all nonhumans are worthless. For example, the guns my men and I are carrying were designed by a coalition of human engineers and certain respectable occult partners. What I’m saying is that if you sneeze or blink or do anything even slightly annoying, I’ll burn you down with the same holy fire that the Archangel Michael used to blast Satan’s ass out of Heaven and into the Abyss.”

“If you’re not Sub Rosa, who do you people work for?”

“I told you. Homeland Security.”

“The federal government monitors magic in California?”

“Not just California. The whole country. It’s our job to keep our eyes on all freaks, terrorists, and potential terrorists, which describes all of you pixies, in my opinion.”

His heartbeat and breathing are steady. His pupils aren’t dilating. He’s telling the truth. Or he thinks he is.

“Are you spooks local? ’Cause I just met this funny little Nazi named Josef. Know him? Blond. Good-looking. Not even remotely human.”

“We know about Josef and his goose-steppers. They’re irrelevant to our current concerns. And we’re not spooks. The CIA are spooks. We heard you and Josef got into a little dustup.”

“It wasn’t so much a dustup as him beating me about three-quarters to death. He also showed me that I can die and how it’ll probably happen. So, how was your day?” Wells checks his watch again. He’s not as cool as he looked at first. Something is worrying him and it’s not me. “That probably doesn’t make much sense to you.”

“I’ve read your file. I know all about you. You’ve haven’t exactly been inconspicuous since you got back to town.”

“You guys have been watching me?”

“From the moment you walked out of the cemetery. At first, we thought you were just another zombie, and were about to send out waste disposal. But when you mugged that crackhead and didn’t eat him, we decided just to keep an eye on you.”

“How?”

“Radar. We’ve got all you pixies on radar.”

“More respectable magic?”

“Our friends understand the security issues at stake.”

“Radar and death rays. Where do I sign up? It doesn’t seem fair that you get all the fun toys.”

“Cry me a river. Anyway, with all your fun and games, my superior asked me to bring you in for a talk.”

“Seems like my week to meet bosses.” The cuffs hold my wrists together, which makes my arms rest on my sore chest. I shift around in my seat, trying to find a more comfortable position. I glance out the window and see that we’re crossing La Cienega. “I notice we’re not going to the courthouse.”

“What makes you think you deserve a day in court?”

“You’re a cop …”

“U.S. marshal.”

“Fine. A cop who can read. Isn’t there something in the law or the Constitution about everyone getting a day in court?”

“That only applies to the living, son.”

“I’m sitting right here.”

“Technically, no. Not in any legal sense. Legally, you’re a nonperson. You’ve been a long-gone daddy out of this realm of existence for eleven years and change. A missing person can be declared dead after seven, which means that you’ve been legally dead almost four years.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Look at the bright side. If you were alive, you’d still be the prime suspect in your girlfriend’s murder. If you were alive, the IRS would want to know why you haven’t been filing taxes. Ask me whether I’m more afraid of Hell or the IRS, I’ll go with the IRS every time.”

“So, you know who I am and where I’ve been.”

“I know every inch of your sorry waste of a life. My boss might want to talk to you, but to me, you’re a parasite. A waste of space and air. It makes a person wish the earth really was flat. Then we could take all the people like you, load you in a garbage scow, and push you over the edge and out of everybody’s hair.”

“If you know where I’ve been, then you know why I’m back. Let me go and let me do what I came here for. I’ll get rid of some very bad people for you.”

“How? By blowing up Rodeo Drive?”

“That was a mistake.”

“Was it? Thanks for clearing that up. The truth is, I don’t give a damn about some Hollywood lawyers’ wives and their shoe stores. What I care about is you. What you represent and the kind of trouble you bring with you. You’re a walking calamity.”

Now I feel it. His heart rate is picking up and there’s the slightest whiff of perspiration coming off him. One of the G-men in the front of the van has turned to watch our conversation. He and Wells smile at each other, sharing some private joke.

When Wells speaks again, he does it with the kind of phony casualness that lets everyone in the room know that you’re about to tell the bad joke they’ve all been waiting for. Wells says, “So, what the hell kind of a name is Sandman Slim anyway? You think you’re some kind of superhero?”

I turn and look at him, “You lost me there, Tex. I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t be modest, we’ve all heard of you. ‘Sandman Slim. The monster who kills monsters.’ I have to admit, it’s kind of catchy. Did you come up with that or did some Hellion ad firm shit that out for you?”

“Listen, cop. I’ve never heard that stupid name before. Stop calling me it. And tell me where we’re going or I’m getting out.”

Wells and the marshal in the front laugh. “I wouldn’t try. I’m dead serious when I tell you that I could put a bullet in your head right now and go have a sandwich.”

“What kind?”

“What kind of what?”

“What kind of sandwich? What’s a murder sandwich taste like? Does it come with extra cheese or chili fries? What tastes better after murder, Coke or Pepsi?”

“You are working my very last nerve, cocksucker.”

“I’m going home.” I reach across Wells for the door, shoving him back into the seat with my shoulder. The marshal goes for his gun.

When you’re facing down multiple attackers, you always want to make the first move. It lets them know that you’re ready to fight and that you’re crazy enough to get the party started. One rule of thumb in fighting is that crazy can often overcome skill and numbers, because, while a trained fighter might actually enjoy going up against another trained fighter, no one really wants to wrestle with crazy. Crazy doesn’t know when it’s winning. And crazy doesn’t know when to stop. If you can’t pull off crazy, if, for instance, you’re handcuffed in a small van with six armed assailants, stupid is a decent substitute for crazy.

Wells still has his hand inside his jacket when I slam my elbow into his throat. He freezes, trying to remember how to breathe. Before the boys in the front of the van get any ideas, I swing an elbow up over his head and bring the arm down on the other side, getting the cuffs around his throat. Then I fall back across the seat, pulling Wells on top of me. The G-men in the front of the van have all drawn their guns out by now, but I’m not sweating. If they want to shoot me, they’re going to have to blow a lot of holes in the big man first.

“Stand down,” shouts Wells. Then, quieter, to me, “That got you far, didn’t it, shit-for-brains?”

“It got me your neck. That’s a start.” I tighten the cuffs across his throat. Just enough so that he can feel it, but not enough to make him pass out. “You’re not the first bunch that ever kidnapped me, but you’re definitely the least fun.”

“Boy, you just attacked a federal officer. I’ll have you swinging from your balls at Gitmo.”

“Who you going to arrest? I’m already dead.” Wells goes for his gun again. I spring forward and slam his head into the door frame, spinning him at the same time so that his body stays between his boys and me. I’ve got four guns on me and one guy is still driving.

We’re somewhere south of L.A., near Culver City. The van turns into the parking lot of what looks like an aircraft assembly plant that hasn’t seen action in twenty years. There are diamond-shaped hazardous materials warnings and rusted DOD signs on all the fences and buildings.

The van slams to a stop and the side door opens. I tighten the cuffs on Wells’s neck and pull him back to use as a shield against whatever is coming into the van.

A woman in a crisply tailored power suit leans her head inside.

“I can come back later if you two gentlemen need a moment alone,” she says.

I let up on Wells’s neck, but still keep hold of him.

“He’s the one getting grabby,” says Wells.

The woman nods. “That’s what he does. All those years in the Abyss have left him with some impulse control issues. It’s all in his file.” She looks at me. “Let Marshal Wells up right now. No one is going to shoot you. And, Larson, uncuff this man. You look like a couple of third graders.”

“Sorry. Who are you again?” I ask.

The woman shakes her head, and then walks away. The G-men have holstered their guns. I lift my arms so that Wells can wiggle out from under the cuffs. He gets out of the van without looking back at me and starts adjusting his suit and tie. I follow him outside and hold out the cuffs. He takes his time, playing with his jacket and tie like a bad Vegas lounge comedian. Finally, he digs a key out of his pocket and unlocks me. There are red marks on my wrists, but there are corresponding marks on Wells’s throat, so I guess we’re even.

I take out my cigarettes and Mason’s Zippo. When I thumb the lighter, all I get is sparks.

“Anybody got a light?” I ask.

“You can’t smoke here,” says Wells.

“We’re in the open in the middle of nowhere. Why not?”

“Are you stupid?” asks Wells. “That’s Aelita. She’s an angel. They’re very sensitive to things like cigarette smoke.”

“Cool. I’ve never seen an angel in disguise before.” I follow her to the old assembly plant.

Aelita isn’t what I imagined an angel would look like. She’s about as ethereal as a zip gun. She walks like she’s about to call in an air strike or buy Europe. Donald Trump in drag with her enemies’ balls in a candy dish on her desk, right next to the stapler.

The complex’s main building is huge. Probably a Cold War–era industrial assembly line. Aelita opens a side door and I can see inside. Absolutely nothing. Concrete floor and metal walls. Shadows of smashed and abandoned machinery. Not even lights.

A few steps into the building, I hit a kind of barrier. It’s like walking through warm Jell-O. Then I’m suddenly in Times Square on New Year’s. Humans in suits, and different kinds of nonhumans, are moving huge diesel engines on automated chain lifters. Others are driving forklifts with pallets loaded with cedar and mugwort. Silver ingots and iron bars. Industrial drums of holy water. They’re assembling armored vehicles and what look like weapons. Shiny superscience versions of old pepper-pot guns.

I look back at the entrance. There are angelic runes chiseled into the concrete floor. Overhead some kind of massive machine hangs bolted to the ceiling. It hums like a beehive and gives off a shimmering fluorescent-green light.

“It’s called a Phylactery Accelerator,” says Aelita. “The holy relics and sigils in the floor form a protective talisman.”

“But not one powerful enough to hide all of whatever the hell this is.”

“Please don’t use profanity in here. The Accelerator captures the energy released by charmed-strange mesons as they decay into protons and antineutrinos, and uses that energy to amplify the talisman’s blessed essence.”

“You lost me after ‘profanity.’ But I think I get the idea. You’re the respectable magic committee. You’ve got a real Norman Rockwell vibe here. Except for all the guns.”

She looks right through me. Suddenly I’m thinking that maybe I would have been better off if the guys in the van had been a hit squad.

“Come with me.”

She takes me into a soundproofed side room. After the noise of the factory floor, the room is spooky quiet. There are stained-glass windows suspended by wires from the rafters. More angelic script cut into the floor, this time in the shape of a cross. There’s an altar at one end of the room. The other end looks like Frankenstein’s lab. There are celestial maps of the universe looking down from Heaven (I’d seen the reverse maps Downtown). The machine that surrounds the operating theater could be anything. Part of a personal nuclear power plant or one of the alien rooms from Forbidden Planet.

I wait for the angel to say something. I want to know why she had me dragged here, but I’m not about to be the first one to blink. I turn and find her over by the altar, brushing Communion-wafer crumbs into her hand. She gently drops them into a trash can beside the altar, then bows her head and crosses herself. Now I know why Lucifer and his wild bunch ended up down below. If I had to take my boss’s kid so seriously that I was required to salute his dandruff, I’d go stab-happy, too.

“Have you been enjoying yourself since your return?” she asks with her back to me.

“Not particularly.”

Now she turns. She smiles. A beaming, monstrously insincere angel smile. Probably another part of her job training.

“I only ask because it seems to me that you’ve been having a lot of fun. Cutting people’s heads off. Beating up people in bars. Blowing up whole shopping districts. Shooting people on the street in the middle of the day. It sounds terribly fun to me. The kind of fun that I’d expect to appeal to someone like you.”

“Is snatching people off the street your idea of fun? God gave you wings, so you have an everlasting get-out-of-jail-free card. You can do anything you want because everything you do is holy. Is that it?”

“Yes. As a matter of fact, it is.”

“Is everything your army does holy, too? They didn’t all look like angels to me. Was Marshal Wells sweating holy water? I must have missed that.”

“Marshal Wells is a good and dedicated man who is willing to give his life in the cause of good. What are you willing to die for?”

“To kill the people I came here for. And to not be fucked with along the way.”

“What if I told you that I could help you find what and who you’re looking for?”

“I wouldn’t believe you.”

“Why?”

“Because I rode here with a gun to my head.”

“Have you ever heard of the Golden Vigil?”

“Sounds like a community-college Goth band.”

“We’re an ancient order. A coalition of celestial beings and humans dedicated to protecting the world and mankind from its greatest enemy.”

Get ready for the Garden of Eden Sunday school lecture.

“Don’t try and sell me the snake oil you fobbed off on your Ghostbusters out there. I’ve met Lucifer. I’ve killed his generals. Those idiots are too busy stabbing each other in the back to be much danger to mankind.”

“You’re right. I agree completely.”

Aelita walks to a long wooden table and picks up what looks like a piece of thick brown cloth. When she gets closer, I see that it’s vellum.

“Lucifer is a eunuch and his armies are buried at the bottom of Creation. No, our real concern is the world’s true enemy, the Enerjik Kissi.” I’m not sure I catch the first word, but she pronounces the second one “Kee-shee.” She holds up the vellum and a sigil has formed there. One I’ve never seen before. It’s not like the usual angelic or even Hellion symbols. It’s practically a Rorschach blot, like someone spilled ink on the vellum, and then tried to wipe it off.

“Let me tell you a story,” she says, and goes and sits at the wooden table. “All little boys like stories.”

As much as I want to get out of here and away from this crazy angel and her mercenary zealots next door, I’m still feeling too ragged to bolt or put up too much of a fight. So I do the next best thing, and surrender. I go to the table and sit down across from her. She spreads the vellum on the table between us. As her hands pass over it, the sigil fades away.

“At the beginning of time, the Lord God made a mistake. Frankly, to some of us, He made two mistakes, but since He likes you talking monkeys, we can’t fix that one. So we turn our attention to the first great mistake.”

She passes her hand over the vellum and images of rough glass globes appear, like pen-and-ink drawings. As Aelita talks, the drawings begin to glow.

“When the Lord bought life to the universe, He did it by spreading His divine light throughout the dark. He breathed His light into glass vessels that He hung in the sky like the stars that would come much later. We, the angelic order, were born from this light. And we helped to spread it throughout Creation. Once, as the Lord blew light into a vessel, He blew in a bit too much and the vessel shattered. His divine light fell into the void and onto the worlds we were building. That falling light was the beginning of life in the universe.”

Like a Disney cartoon, the vessels on the vellum crack open, turning into squirming little one-cell organisms.

“But not all of the divine light landed on the worlds. Some fell into the deep unformed void that was nothing but boiling chaos. Since the Lord was now enchanted by the life growing on His worlds, we never bothered to put anything into the far void. We all now regret that decision.”

She waves her hand and the vellum images disappear, like lines on an Etch A Sketch. She lays her palm on the vellum, and a roiling, crawling blackness seeps across it.

“As both angels and lower life”—she nods in my direction—“were born from divine light, so was something else. In the chaos grew another sort of life, very much like angels, but different. Wells and some of his men describe them as ‘anti-angels,’ which is as good an explanation as your little brains can grasp.”

I put my hand on the black vellum that’s now roiling and writhing like liquid obsidian. It looks like the knife I have under my coat. The knife is supposed to be bone, but I never found out what kind of bone.

I say, “The anti-angels are the Kissi.”

“Yes.” She moves her hand again and the bubbling black is gone. As she talks, other images appear from under the hand resting on the vellum.

“The Kissi don’t hate life. Life fascinates them. The energy. The unpredictability of it. The chaos of life. When they found early humans, they settled right in, creating more chaos. Helping one tribe create weapons. Teaching language to another. The Kissi were born in chaos. It’s what they’re made of. It’s what they consume. Humans create a particularly appetizing sort of chaos to the Kissi.

“Eons ago, there was a war between us angels and the Kissi that raged from the earth all the way to the gates of Heaven. Neither side won.”

“Was Lucifer already in Hell? If you’d asked for his help, he might have come through. I don’t think he’d like a bunch of mad dogs eating up Earth, either. If we were gone, who else would he screw with?”

“No one would ask the Prince of Lies for help. Don’t be stupid.”

“So, it was an option? But you didn’t go for it. Isn’t pride one of the seven deadly sins?”

She looks at me like my mother used to look at me right before she smacked me on the ear. Like Mom, she gets hold of herself before the big explosion.

“As I said, there was a war. Neither side could defeat the other, so we struck a bargain with the Kissi. They could stay and, since humans were naturally chaotic creatures, the Kissi could satisfy their appetites for chaos and destruction within certain specific limits. The Golden Vigil was created to monitor this truce.

“The truce has held for millennia. But lately things have changed. The Kissi activities are becoming more bold and reckless. They openly attack humans. They are involved in wars. Terrorism. Drug and weapons trading. Something has upset the balance.” She takes her hand off the vellum and starts folding it up. “When we heard that Sandman Slim had come to Earth, naturally we thought that he might be the cause of the trouble.”

“Wells called me that name in the car. What the hell was he talking about?”

“Please don’t use profanity here.” She sets the vellum aside. “The marshal was talking about you, you fool. You’re Sandman Slim. The monster who kills monsters. Do you think we don’t know what you were doing in Hell? Fallen angels are still angels. We notice when someone kills them. You have quite a reputation in the celestial realms. That’s why you’re here.”

“I’m not a monster. I’m just a man.”

“You’re a monster to someone. In the Inferno, you’re the bogeyman who frightens the bogeyman. And you’ve bought your talent for destruction back here to Earth. That’s why you’re here. In case you hadn’t noticed, this is a job interview.”

That’s the single scariest thing I’ve heard anyone say since I came home. And this angel is making my skin crawl in ways that even Mason can’t.

“I already have a job, thanks. I run a video store.”

“You’re weak. I can smell the damage from your recent injuries. That’s the only reason you’re here and alive. When we thought that you were in league with the Kissi, there was a death warrant on your head. But after your encounter with Josef, that seems doubtful.”

“He’s a Kissi.”

“Of course. I thought that you would have understood that by now.”

“I think I met one in Hell once. In the arena. Is that possible?”

“Unlike the Hellions, the Kissi can move anywhere in the universe, including into and out of Hell. So, yes, you could have easily met one. What happened?”

“Lucifer was pissed. He threw the thing out.”

“No doubt hoping it would return to Earth to wreak havoc and leave his disgusting kingdom to him alone. How brave.”

“He did walk right up to it and order it out. Have you ever walked right up and started a fight with a Kissi?” She doesn’t answer. “Anyway, if something’s upset the balance of the universe, it probably means that we’re looking for the same person. Mason Faim.”

“Excellent. We have a common enemy. You’ll join the Vigil and we’ll fight the forces of chaos together.”

“No thanks. Your little war sounds like fun, but I have my own work to do.”

Aelita says, “This is God’s work.”

I get up from the table and walk away across the room. I need to be careful. I don’t want to say the wrong thing when she knows that I’m hurt. The bullets in my chest are playing soccer with my ribs. I’d filled Mason’s lighter earlier, so I take out my cigarettes and spark one. Take a couple of big puffs and flick the ashes onto her altar. I’ll admit it. I’m not good at careful.

“Where was God when I was stuck in Hell?” I ask her. “If you knew about Sandman Slim, then you knew I’d been dragged down there alive and was being tortured. But you hosanna-singing sons of bitches couldn’t spare one lousy angel to help me out?”

“Maybe God thought you were where you belonged.”

“He was right. You know why? Because I got to see exactly how the wheels turn in that part of the universe. Now you’ve given me a little snapshot of Heaven. You Heaven-and-Hell types are just the same shakedown artists in different uniforms. I’ve only been kidnapped twice in my life. Once by Lurkers and now by an angel.”

“You understand that since none of Lucifer’s fiends can leave Hell, it must have been Kissi who dragged you down, probably in league with your friend Mason.”

“Thanks. When I’m done with Mason, I’ll know who to go after next.” I grind the remains of my cigarette into the altar and leave them. “All of you celestial pricks. Lucifer’s psychos and God’s lapdogs, you’re out for yourselves, just like everybody else. You don’t care about the world. You cut a deal with the Kissi. I wonder why?”

Aelita stands, very tall and straight, with her hands folded in front of her.

“Tell me. Enlighten me, Sandman Slim.”

“Because they made it to Heaven. Got right up to the gates. So, you cut a deal. You sent the wolves down here among the sheep and asked the wolves to behave. And if they didn’t, oh well. It’s just a few ewes being slaughtered. But now the wolves are hungrier than ever, and you know that sooner or later, they’re going to come knocking on Heaven’s door.”

Aelita shakes her head and gives me that creepy, benevolent-angel smile again.

“You make me so sad, James.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“All right, Sandman.”

“Don’t call me that, either.”

“I hadn’t realized how all those years in the Abyss had warped your mind. You’ve completely lost your ability to feel empathy. I’ve told you what’s coming for humanity, yet you won’t lift a finger to prevent it.” She’s walking over to me, like a kindergarten teacher about to take the white glue away from a kid who won’t stop eating it. “Don’t you feel anything for anyone?”

“No. The only person I cared about was murdered. And you didn’t do anything about that, either, did you?”

“I can help you heal. Your body and your soul. You were an empty vessel when you went into the Abyss and the devil filled you full of poison. Let me fill you with the Lord’s divine light.”

She’s throwing some hardcore angel hoodoo my way. Trying to get control of my tiny, expendable monkey brain. Candy was better at the soothing talk trick—she really had me going back at Kinski’s. But Aelita isn’t getting anywhere. Maybe the difference is that I kind of liked Candy, but Lucretia Borgia here isn’t my type.

“Let me help you, my son.” She reaches out and takes both of my hands in hers. “Become part of God’s great plan.”

“No.”

Aelita’s face turns red and she screams. Tears are streaming down her red face. She takes my hand again and then drops it.

“Abomination,” she whispers. Then she screams, “Abomination!”

Downtown, one of the things Hellions used to complain about was how Heaven had disarmed them before tossing them into the garbage dump. Every angel is born with a weapon. Not something they can lose, but something that’s part of them. A flaming sword. They manifest it with a thought and use it like a handheld nuke. I’d never seen one before Aelita manifested her sword in the soundproof chapel.

I’m still looking at it, kind of hypnotized by the thing, when she sticks it through me. I can feel it go through my chest and come out my back, burning and freezing at the same time.

Then I’m on the floor. I have a weird hallucination that Vidocq and Allegra are standing over me. Then I’m dead.

I DREAM THAT I’m back on Earth. I dream that I’ve escaped from Azazel and all the pain and madness of Hell. I’m home and I’m drinking beer with Alice, sweaty and happy in bed. I struggle to open my eyes and I see blue skies. I’m waking up in a cemetery. I am home. It isn’t a dream. But why is the moon out during the day?

It’s not the moon. It’s a light.

That’s not the sky. It’s a blue ceiling. I know the smell of this place, but its name is lost down some darkened detour in my brain.

“I WAS DEAD.”

“Pretty much,” says Kinski. He’s leaning over me, shining a light into my eyes as I lie on his exam table. “But Eugène poured a whole bottle of white nightshade elixir down your throat. It kept your soul from wandering away. After that, it was just a matter of kick-starting your body. How do you feel?”

“All right. Tired, but all right.”

Several of Kinski’s rocks are arranged around the wound in my chest. Others around my head, arms, and legs. The doc takes the stones off me, one by one.

Vidocq and Allegra are at the other end of the table. “I saw you there,” I say. “I thought I was dreaming, but you were there.”

“Yes,” Vidocq says. “I’m so sorry for what happened.”

“You knew those cops were going to snatch me, didn’t you? You told them where I’d be. You set me up.”

“You’ve been so out of control lately. I thought meeting the Golden Vigil and seeing their work would help you to focus your energies. You’re going to kill yourself or some innocent person.”

“So, you handed me over to Homeland Security and a psychotic angel. Is that your idea of group therapy?”

“I had no idea this would happen. Aelita was just going to talk to you.”

I swing my legs over the edge of the table and try to stand. My vision blurs and my head swims. I sit back down.

“I crawl all the way out of Hell just to get kidnapped and sold out by friends all over again. But you know what the funniest thing about this is? Mason didn’t get me killed. You did.” Vidocq is sweating and cold. It’s a fear reaction. Fear and guilt. “How long have you been working for them?”

“I work with them, not for them. It’s been a while. Half a year. A little more, maybe. You don’t know how things have been getting here. It’s bad and getting worse. Things are quieter now. I don’t know why. But they’ll turn bad again and then you’ll see why I did what I did.”

“Were you working for them before I went Downtown?”

He shakes his head. “No. I’d barely heard of them back then.”

Kinski hands me a glass of some stinking brown tea.

“Drink that down. All of it. Don’t sip it.”

I down the tea in three long gulps. It’s thick and hot and I can feel little bits of twigs and leaves in my mouth. I hand the glass back to Kinski.

“Thanks. That was disgusting.” I look at Vidocq. “At least your lie is a new lie. That’s something. Small mercies, my father would say.”

Allegra is holding on to Vidocq’s arm, like she’s supporting an old man who’s had a stroke but is too proud to use a cane. Her heart is racing. Her pupils are like hubcaps. She’s afraid, but not of me. Of everything. It might not have been such a good idea to bring her into the Sub Rosa world. She’s seen a lot in just a few days. “Were you in on this with him?” I ask.

She looks at Vidocq, then back at me.

“He told me earlier. Look, after the thing on Rodeo and Medea Bava with those feathers and teeth, it didn’t seem like such a bad idea.”

“Okay. Thanks. You can leave with him.”

Vidocq comes around the table. The bottles of potions and poisons sewn into his coat tinkle as he walks. “No, Jimmy.”

“Yes, Jimmy. Get out of here. Both of you.”

“Eugène saved you,” says Allegra. “Aelita about killed your ass.”

“Maybe next time she’ll get lucky and save you two the trouble of selling me out.”

Kinski says, “Why don’t you ease up on these people a little? You brought some of this on yourself.” I can’t read Kinski. His eyes are steady. I can’t hear his heart or breathing. He’s hiding them from me somehow. Maybe Candy taught him some Jade tricks.

“Thanks for saving me, doc. I mean it. I’m going to need to sit here for a while. After that, I’ll be out of your hair. But until then, please stay the fuck out of this.”

Candy is over in the corner of the room. I missed her before. She’s got her back to the wall and is trying to make herself small.

Looking back to Allegra and Vidocq, I say, “You two need to leave now. I don’t want to look at you anymore.” Vidocq starts to say something, but I cut him off. “I should have seen something like this coming. Hell’s a circus run by mental patients. Heaven’s a gated community where we’re the bastard stepkids the real kids hate. Daddy’s little mistake. Where does that leave us on this rock? I believe Aelita’s story about the broken glass starting life. Trash falls from the sky and no one cleans it up because the trash starts talking. Why should anyone expect anything from anyone? How can trash trust trash?”

Vidocq nods. “Right, then.” He looks at Allegra and they walk out together, closing the door to the exam room behind them.

Kinski and Candy start putting things back in cabinets. Bottles. Bundles of dried plants. A tray of desiccated sea horses. Kinski wraps his rocks up in their silk covers and quietly stows them away.

“What’s wrong with your arm?” I ask. His left arm is bandaged up to the elbow. Spots of blood have soaked through the dressing.

“That’s nothing. A couple of kids jumped me last night. They must have been high or something. They weren’t very good robbers. They didn’t get anything. Maybe they just wanted to beat someone up.”

“Did they grab you or did they just start pushing you around?”

“What difference does that make?”

“If they grabbed you, it was probably a robbery. If they started whaling on you, then they were just looking to kick someone’s ass. Which was it?”

“I guess they sort of grabbed me, at first.”

“Then it was a robbery.”

“Yeah, but they didn’t ask for my wallet or pat me down. They just kind of held on and dragged me around.”

“Were they trying to pull you toward a car or into one of these stores?”

“Like they were kidnapping me? No. I don’t think so. They were just high.”

“Who’ve you pissed off? You owe anyone money?”

“No one. It was nothing. Just life in the big city.” He puts the last of the rocks away and turns to me, half smiling. “Look who’s quizzing me about pissing people off. I think you took the gold, silver, and bronze in that event.”

I waited for a minute, not sure I was going to say the next thing.

“I figured out one of your secrets.”

“Which one would that be?”

“The rocks you used on Allegra and me. They’re glass, aren’t they? The glass from Aelita’s story. Glass all full of divine light. Where did you get them?”

“You can find anything on eBay.”

“Or from Mr. Muninn,” says Candy.

“He has some nice things, no doubt.”

“Why did you want them?” I ask. “You don’t seem like a hippie New Age type. And you seem smart enough. Why aren’t you a regular doctor?”

“What do I keep telling you? We’ll talk when you let me take those bullets out.”

“Then it was a bad move using those rocks on me. I don’t even feel them anymore.”

“You will.” The doc keeps moving around the place, putting little things away. Examining others before handing them to Candy. He drops things, clumsy with just the one good arm. Candy leans against the end of the exam table. I pull my legs back so she can sit down. “Keep running around things and you’ll feel them soon enough.” Kinski picks up some green stems with small white blossoms on top. Candy leans over and takes them from him. “See? I told you we had some veratrum,” he says.

“That’s why you’re the doc,” says Candy.

The doc looks at me and crosses his arms.

“You might want to ease up on Eugène. He stood up for you while a lot of folks around here want to see you sent right back to where you came from, but he stood up for you.”

“You one of them?”

“I’m on the fence.”

“That’s why I don’t know if I trust you to cut me open.”

“Imagine how I feel having you in my home, Sandman Slim.”

I hadn’t thought of that.

“Thanks again for fixing me up. I owe you.”

Candy says, “You’re going to have a nice new scar for your collection.”

I rub my chest. She’s right. There’s an almost-healed burn near my heart, right where the sword went in.

“It’s a good one, too. I think I’ll be immune to nukes after this.” Candy’s heart has slowed, but her pupils are still wide. “Listen. I was an asshole the other night. I had no call to talk to you the way I did. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Jades freak out a lot of people.”

“Not me. I know better than that. When I was Downtown, I met Hellions more honorable than ninety-nine percent of the people I have to deal with up here. And I met human souls as vicious and treacherous as any Hellion. So for me to say that stuff to you, that was double shitty. My father would have smacked me and I’d’ve deserved it.”

“I forgive you. We’ll all be freaks together. A bloodsucker who doesn’t suck blood. A human who thinks he’s a Tasmanian Devil driving a tank. And a two-armed witch doctor with only one working arm.”

I ask Kinski, “Why don’t you use the glass to fix yourself?”

He shakes his head.

“They don’t work the same way on everybody and they can’t fix everything. I’ve got my herbs and my ice packs. I’ll be fine.”

“It’s funny, you got mugged by people who didn’t know what they wanted and I sort of did, too.”

“You mean the angel?” asks Candy.

“Yeah. One minute, she’s doing the hard sell and then she’s coming over all beatific and Mother Teresa. Then she suddenly goes batshit psycho. Screams, ‘Abomination,’ and stabs me.”

“You’re sure she said ‘Abomination’?”

“She was screaming it right in my face. I’m sure.”

Candy makes a face and says, “Angels can be such pricks.”

“That they can, darlin’,” Kinski says. “Listen, you’re going to have to watch your back. Just because Eugène stopped Aelita today doesn’t mean he’ll be able to do it again.”

“You think she’ll come after me?”

“Angels don’t use the word Abomination lightly. You’re the lowest of the low to her. Worse than a Hellion.”

“So, if Parker or Mason or Hellions or Homeland Security don’t get me, she will.”

“Don’t forget the Sub Rosa,” says Candy.

“Thanks, sunshine. The Sub Rosa, too.”

“You can always come here if things get too hot. I know people who can help get you out of town,” Kinski says.

“I’ll remember that.” I slide off the table and try out my feet. What do you know? I don’t fall over or want to throw up. It’s the little things that make life special. “I should go. Do you know the number of a cab company?”

“I’ve got one in the desk. I’ll go look.” He goes out and Candy and I are alone in the exam room. She gets off the table and brings me a plastic bag full of what looks like mulch.

“Doc wants you to boil this stuff and drink it once in the morning and once at night until it’s gone. Don’t worry. It doesn’t taste any worse than a boiled doormat.”

“Thanks. Is this what the doc gives you to wean you off being a Jade?”

“My tea tastes a lot worse than yours.”

“How’s sobriety working out for you?”

“You know. One day at a time.”

“Were you bitten or something? How do you become a Jade?”

“You’re born to be a Jade. The gift, or affliction, depending on who you ask, descends through the female line in the family. I can trace all my Jade ancestors back to the First Crusade.”

“If it’s your nature to eat people, doesn’t it feel funny to go against that? And against a thousand years of your family history?”

“We drink people. We don’t eat them. And giving it up isn’t so bad. Everything has to evolve, right? We’re monkeys in trees one day and the next we’re monkeys with dental hygiene and cell phones. Best of all, we don’t throw shit at each other anymore.”

“Speak for yourself,” I say, and Candy laughs. Her heartbeat goes up a little. “Do you think that if the doc can get you off drinking people juice, you’ll feel like a regular person someday?”

“Project much, Sandman Slim? What you mean is that if doc can make me less of a monster, can he do it for you, too?”

“I didn’t say you were a monster.”

“But I am. By any human definition, I am a monster. And I always will be, so, no, I don’t think I’ll ever feel like a regular person. I’ll just be a monster who chooses to be a little less monstrous. Who knows? I might fall off the wagon and start drinking people milk shakes again. But I’m going to try not to. Are you asking because you want to see if doc can turn you into a librarian when all this is over?”

I’m walking circles around the table, trying to get my sea legs back. Candy cranes her neck around to watch me. It’s weird being alone with her.

“I don’t know exactly what I want. I know that no one outside of Hell can stand what I am. I’m not wild about it most of the time myself. But I can’t picture being something else.”

“Try. Just imagine it for a few days. See how it feels.”

“Why not? But I’m lazy. When it’s time, I’ll probably go for a simpler fix.”

“Like what?”

“Going back to Hell isn’t the worst thing I can imagine. I know the place. I have a rep. I can probably get my old job back, fighting in the arena.”

“Are you talking about killing yourself?”

“Nah. I’m not the suicide type. I just mean that if I get to pick my moment, it might not be so bad. That was the problem last time. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t get to pick the moment. I could this time.”

“I hate to break it to you, but planning your own violent death, whether it’s you murdering yourself or letting someone else do it, is still suicide.”

“You think so?” I shake my head and lean against the wall, suddenly out of breath. “Ignore me. I’m babbling. I’m tired. My only friends narced me out to Norman Bates’s mom. And every time I get up close to death, I think about Alice.”

“You know she’s not down below. You let yourself be killed and you’ll be farther away from her than ever, and it will be forever.”

“Point taken. Truth is, enough people want me dead that I’m probably never going to have to make that choice.”

“See? Things are looking up already.”

“Let’s see if my cab’s here yet.”

I WAKE IN the early afternoon, wander into the bathroom, and see myself in the mirror. Candy was right. Aelita’s sword has given me one of my best scars. It looks like a rattler set itself on fire and did a GG Allin stage dive into my chest. This scar is a work of art. It deserves an Oscar and a star on Hollywood Boulevard. It deserves its own power ballad. Now I sort of know how Lucifer must have felt when that last thunderbolt hit and he fell out of Heaven’s cotton candy clouds and into the deep, deep dark.

Aelita seems to have given me something else, too. Back in Hell, each new scar was a gift. Protection against a new attack. That attack in Aelita’s chapel seems to have left me with something besides a new scar. She’s given me some part of her angelic vision. Or maybe she just tore open my third eye, the one that’s been sensing other people’s moods and heartbeats. Whatever it is, I see with different eyes now and I see what she was trying to tell me. The Kissi are everywhere.

There’s graffiti on the alley wall behind Max Overdrive. It’s painted on the buildings and street corners. Store windows and telephone poles. The marks aren’t in any language I know, but I can almost understand them. Like a name on the tip of your tongue that just won’t come. The marks are greetings, warnings, and messages. Hobo signs for eldritch hicks.

The Kissi wander the streets ghosting the holiday merrymakers. Giddy families window-shop, trying to fill some of their desperate hours together with anything that gets them out of having to talk to each other. In some of those families, Mom or Dad is a Kissi. Or possessed by one. A little Kissi girl follows her parents, holding her big brother’s hand, literally draining the life from him as the family stops to admire a blinking LED wreath outside a Burmese restaurant.

There are Kissi as pale and tenuous as vapor from a car exhaust. They whisper lies into people’s ears. Slip hotel receipts into a husband’s wallet. A phone number into a wife’s jacket pocket. They merrily plant little cells of paranoia that grow like a melanoma, because what’s more fun at this time of year than a holiday family slaughter?

I have to get off the street. I can’t stand looking at this. Regular people are bad enough, but regular people being made worse by chaos-sucking bottom feeders is something I can’t take right now.

What’s going on in the street doesn’t look much like a détente to me. The Kissi don’t care who sees them. The Vigil might be right about the Kissi breaking the treaty, but they don’t seem to have a clue how to do anything about it.

There are plenty of cops out, too. Unis and plainclothes. More than I’d expect around Christmas. Aren’t people supposed to be nodding off on tryptophan, eggnog, and fascist Santa’s order to be merry? Maybe the cops know something the rest of us don’t know. Maybe they just feel the undercurrent of craziness in the air. They try to blend in with the holiday wanderers, but they’re as inconspicuous as spiders on a birthday cake.

I just want quiet, a cup of coffee, and no one talking to me. I head for Donut Universe.

Some genius has installed a TV on the wall behind the doughnut counter. Those of us stupid enough to want to sit and drink our coffee inside get a complimentary twenty-four-hour-a-day slice of weather, sports, and genocide with our glazed old-fashioneds. When the local report comes on, it confirms more of what Aelita told me. Robbery. Murder. Rape. Arson. They’re spiraling up and out of control. The local politicos and law dogs don’t have a clue why or what to do about it. Sounds like someone moved Devil’s Night to December and forgot to tell the rest of us to duck and cover.

The green-haired pixie counter girl I’ve seen before is working today. She’s good at her job. Chats up the customers. Smiles and listens without looking fake or like a mental patient. At another time and place, I’d steal a car for her every night and leave it in the parking lot with the keys in the ignition. But here and now I can’t keep falling in instant love like this. It’s embarrassing and distracting. If Vidocq was around, I’d ask him for a potion. A temporary lobotomy, please. Just something to get me through the holidays, and maybe kill off this idiot nineteen-year-old who still lives in my head.

I look up from the pixie girl to burning houses in East L.A. Crying mothers. Screaming kids. There’s blood in the water, so the TV reporters swim up with blank eyes and a mouthful of shark’s teeth. They stick microphones in the faces of new widows and ask, “How does it make you feel?” I love L.A.

I wonder if things have always been this way. Are the Kissi the devils on our shoulders? Or do they just like us because our devils are so loud and hard to miss? I see why Heaven and Hell want to control the Kissi. They can’t ever let regular people hear about them. After the panic, it’d be too easy to pin all of humanity’s bad habits on them. Plus, someone would have to explain where they came from. That means people finding out that God is a fuckup and the devil doesn’t matter. Neither side wants that.

I wonder if the Kissi are strong enough to jack an angel? Maybe. If they really are anti-angels. Muninn said someone was dragging angels up the hill to Avila. That sounds like urban-myth bullshit to me. Like that kid down the street who made a funny face and it stayed that way, so his family had to move away. If someone is snatching angels, it’s probably the Kissi. I don’t think even Mason could mug Aelita.

Two guys come in from the parking lot. I can feel them from all the way across the room. Heat and crazy breathing. Their hearts are going off like machine guns. But they look boring. An older guy in a gray suit. A junior high boy with a skateboard under his arm. They’re bent over the counter ordering doughnuts. I can’t get a look at their faces. They order a few dozen. A whole box full. The green-haired girl rings them up, and when she tells them the total, the guy in the suit pulls a .44 from his jacket and shoots her. And he keeps shooting her. He has to lean all the way over the counter to get off the last few rounds.

I’m up while he’s still concentrating on the girl. Junior drops his deck, pulls his own piece, and aims it at me. I stop. They’re both Kissi.

This isn’t a good time. I’m weak. I don’t want to get shot right now and they know it. They laugh at me.

The guy in the suit says, “You naughty boy.”

“You stole our na’at,” says the kid.

“And after we invited you into our home so nicely and politely.”

“Some people have no manners.”

“No manners at all. That’s all right. We’ll do you a trade.” The man points to his chest, then mine. “Hold on to whatever that is in there for us. We’ll be back with a doggy bag.”

“Happy holidays,” says the kid. There’s blood all over the box of doughnuts. The kid opens it and takes out an apple fritter. “You really ought to try these. They make ’em fresh every morning.”

They stroll out the door like they just won the lottery.

Behind me, an old lady is screaming. I hear cell phones beeping as people fumble with the keypads trying to make their fingers hit 911. I look over the counter at the green-haired girl. She’s dead. As dead as anyone I’ve ever seen.

Is that what Alice looked like?

Good-bye, green-haired girl. How many more of you am I not going to save?

THERE’S A GOLD Lexus parked around the corner. Ten seconds later, it’s mine. I pull into a no-name indie gas station and buy a pack of cigarettes, two plastic gas cans, and a T-shirt with MANN’S CHINESE THEATRE on the front. I pay for four gallons of gas in advance, fill the two cans, and get back in the car. I’ve always been pretty good with directions. Hell made me good with them even when I’m getting my ass kicked, so I know where I’m going. Fifteen minutes later, I’m parked down the block from the furniture warehouse where the skinheads party.

I slice the T-shirt in half and dip each piece into the can, letting them soak up the juice. Then I stuff them in the cans’ mouths and head for the clubhouse.

A fat man in a Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts is walking the other way. As we pass I say, “You should call 911.”

He stops. “Has there been an accident?”

“Not yet.”

There’s no one outside the clubhouse. Why would there be? Who’s going to play games with a building full of methed-up headbangers?

I light the rags in each can with Mason’s lighter. I knock on the door politely. My other adolescent crush, Ilsa, the skinhead girl, opens up. She smiles at me like you smile at an old dog that can’t help shitting on himself.

She asks, “What the fuck do you want?”

I kick once, slamming the door open and her out of the way. I sling the gas cans underhanded, aiming at the opposite ends of the room.

They explode, one a fraction of a second behind the other. Flames splash across the walls like a flood of hellfire. It’s an instant riot inside. Screaming. Punching. Skinheads and their white power girlfriends clawing past each other for the one exit. I pull the door closed and kick a garbage can in front of it.

The first one out is the big gorilla I stabbed in the leg at the Bamboo House of Dolls. He trips over the can and face plants just outside the door. The next few drowning rats trip over him. Fall in a screaming pile of bodies, blocking the door. It’s the Keystone Kops with third-degree burns.

Eventually, enough people inside push forward that the bodies and the door get kicked out of the way. The panicked, burned, and smoke-choked master race pours outside and collapses in the street.

Josef comes strolling out last. His clothes are smoldering and his face looks like a hamburger someone forgot to take off the barbecue. Ilsa and a dozen of Josef’s steroid lapdogs get up and follow him.

Josef doesn’t even look around. He knows who did this. He comes right for me. I can see the beast under his skin. I can’t tell if he was ever human.

When he’s a few feet away, he starts to say something. It’s going to be some Kissi threat or demonic one-liner. Who cares? I slash his throat with the black blade, giving the knife a little twist. Unlike Kasabian, when Josef’s head pops off, he’s totally, one hundred percent dead.

I pick up the head by its singed blond hair and push it into Ilsa’s chest. It takes her a minute to figure out that she’s supposed to take it. I wait for one of the big boys to make a move, but they’re mostly staring at the raspberry-colored lake forming around Josef’s body.

I say, “You tell the rest of these animals and any Kissi you run into to stay away from my doughnut place.”

I go back to the Lexus and floor it out of there before they come to enough to realize that there are fifty of them and only one of me.

IF YOU DO it right, cleaning your guns is a form of meditation. There’s the precise disassembly. Attaching a cotton swatch to the end of a ramrod, soaking it in solvent, and passing it through the gun barrel from the breech end and out the front. Cleaning the nooks and crannies with a soft toothbrush. Carefully applying a few drops of gun oil. Then wiping the gun down and reassembling it before starting on the next gun, moving from smallest to largest. It’s a calm, quiet, and satisfying process. I’m ashamed that I’ve neglected the guns this long. I should have cleaned them the moment I dug them out from under the floorboards at Vidocq’s. Wild Bill would be ashamed of me.

I’d picked up the cleaning kit at an upscale gun club in West Hollywood on the way back to Max Overdrive. Also a can of WD-40 to clean the na’at. On the night table next to the bed is the bottom half of a Coke can I ripped in half. There’s an inch of Spiritus Dei floating in the can and I dip each bullet into it before reloading the guns.

That encounter with the Kissi back at Donut Universe woke me up. I need to be more careful now that I don’t have any real backup.

I can’t get the bloody image of the green-haired girl out of my mind. Every time I think I’ve pushed her away, Alice drifts in to take her place.

No wonder I’m so popular.

There’s a knock at the door. I stay sitting on the bed, but hide the reassembled .45 under one leg, where I can get it quickly. I don’t say, “Come in,” but she comes in anyway.

Allegra only takes a couple of steps into the room, like she’s afraid there are snakes under all the furniture. She sits on Kasabian’s old bootlegging table, knocking over a couple of stacks of DVDs that I’d stolen from the racks downstairs. I soak another cotton patch in solvent and go back to cleaning the guns.

“Why didn’t you tell me before about what happened to you? What Mason did?”

“Vidocq told you my little secret? Is he in some contest I don’t know about? Rat out your friends three times in a day and win Springsteen tickets.”

“He just wanted me to understand why you’re the way you are.”

“And now everyone knows. Did you come up here to gloat? I give up. You win. You and Vidocq showed me up for the chump I truly am.”

“That’s not what this is about and you know it.”

“Princess, I only know two things. One is that I’m going to kill Mason and Parker, and nothing human or inhuman is going to stop me. And two, I’m on my own.”

“Don’t play that martyr shit with me. I’ve seen how you are.”

“You don’t get it. You think I’m saying this because I’m still mad. I’m not. I just understand things better now. A friend laid it out for me. I’m not one of you. The only thing I live for now is to kill as many people and break as many things as I need to, to get what I want. By the standards of most sane people, that makes me a monster. I’m fine with that. And, if I’m alive when this is over, I’m going back to where the monsters live.”

“Hell?”

“It’s where I belong. It’s where I want to be.”

Allegra reaches down, picks up one of the piles of DVDs, and begins to straighten them.

“Eugène loves you,” she says.

“That’s nice. My father loved me. He tried to shoot me once.”

“What?”

“We were out deer hunting. It was just after sunup and cold enough that I could see my breath. I’d spotted a six-point buck ahead in the tree line. I led the way, up front a few yards, with my father right behind me. I spotted the buck in a clearing, signaled my father to stop. I raised my rifle and took the shot. Just as I pulled the trigger, I heard another gun go off and something hit me on the side of the head. My father’s shot had missed me by maybe an inch and hit the tree where I was leaning. I looked back at him, blood coming down my face where flying bark and splinters had hit me. He came running up apologizing, saying it was all an accident, asking if I was okay. But behind all the panic in his eyes, there was nothing but fear and loathing. He hated himself for taking the shot, but he hated me more for still breathing.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Just because someone says they love you doesn’t mean they’re not going to fuck you over the first chance they get.”

“What about Alice? Did she fuck you over, too?”

“No. She’s the one who didn’t.”

Allegra empties a couple of overflowing ashtrays into a metal trash can on the floor.

“Doesn’t that mean anything?”

“No. I told her I loved her about a million times. It didn’t save her. It’s what got her killed.”

“But you both loved each other. You still have that.”

“You loved your drug-dealer boyfriend. I bet he told you he loved you every day. How’d that work out for you?”

“This isn’t about me.”

“You’re right, it’s not. So, why don’t you run along back to Vidocq and let me finish my work so I can get all of you and this town behind me?”

She shakes her head, pushes more junk from the table into the trash, and starts for the door.

“After I’m gone,” I tell her, “as far as I’m concerned, you can have Max Overdrive. Parker’s killed Kasabian by now, so he’s not going to want it back. I’m sure Vidocq can come up with some kind of glamour that’ll make it look like you owned the place all along.”

She drops the trash can by the door. Lets it fall over and spill food wrappers, empty cans, and cigarette butts on the floor.

“You know what? You’re not a monster. You’re just a motherfucker. Eugène should have let Aelita put you out of your misery.”

“Good-bye, Allegra. Go tidy up at Eugène’s.”

She kicks the can out of the way and slams the door. I can hear her stomp down every single step, like she’s punishing the staircase, like God’s tiniest tyrannosaurus.

WHEN ALLEGRA IS gone, I finish cleaning and reassembling the guns. When that’s done, I take old newspapers and paper bags from under the bootlegging table and lay them out flat on the floor.

When you stretch out a regulation na’at to its full length, it’s ten feet of very sharp Hellion steel teeth, spikes, and spines. Some are spring-loaded and ready to go whenever you pick up the na’at. Others only open up when you trigger them from the grip.

Traditionally, you use a na’at like a spear or a staff, but there’s another trigger that collapses the central shaft. Suddenly the na’at is as loose as chicken chow mein, a metal whip that can strip the skin off a rhino like peeling a grape. Not that I’ve ever peeled a rhino or a grape, but you get the idea.

I only mention this to explain that your basic na’at has a lot more intricate mechanical parts than anything any human has ever manufactured. When you decide to WD-40 your na’at, you need a lot of room and a lot of newspapers to soak up the excess oil. You should also open a window before you start spraying lube and solvents around your bedroom, something I almost always forget to do.

I drag the newspaper and the na’at across the room and out of the way. I stash the guns under the mattress and wash the WD-40 off my hands in the bathroom. I’ve trashed enough clothes that I’m back down to video-store T-shirts and jeans. I throw on the silk overcoat I’ve been avoiding and slip the knife inside. On the way out, I push open the three big windows on the wall opposite the bed.

The short walk to the Bamboo House of Dolls clears the stink out of my nose and head. A drink and a cigarette later and I’m happy to be back on Earth. When Carlos brings me my food, I drink to his health. I haven’t done much for him lately, except maybe cooking and decapitating some skinheads, but I can’t exactly talk to him about that. He brings up sports and I try to say something that doesn’t sound stupid, but I didn’t know much about sports before I went Downtown. Finally, he gives up and walks off to serve other customers.

I haven’t talked to him much lately. I haven’t wanted to talk much at all. It seems like a good idea to let the guy know that I appreciate him, his bar, and his food. Right now Carlos is about the closest thing I have to friend on this planet. With Cherry, Jayne-Anne, and Kasabian gone, so are all my ties to Mason, leaving me right in the middle of downtown with nothing to do and nowhere to go. When you’re in that neighborhood, you need at least one person on your side. Preferably one with a bar.

I finish off two more drinks before it becomes dangerously clear that if I hang around much longer, I’m going to have to talk to someone.

I time the walk back to Max Overdrive perfectly. I get to the door right on the last puff of my cigarette. Flicking the butt into the Dumpster, I let myself in the back way.

Inside, the oily solvent smell is gone, but now there’s something else. Alcohol? Disinfectant? The staircase smells like a hospital waiting room.

I find out why a minute later. By then I’m already on the floor and the world is a shivering Slip and Slide, so there’s no chance of me getting up. I have a feeling that the robot ghost in the dirty trench coat that’s waving a baseball bat in my face might have something to do with it.

Pieces of the world start falling back into place enough for to me to see that the robot ghost isn’t really a robot or a ghost. It’s Kasabian, and he’s held together with a lot of metal rods and screws. There’s a metal band bolted around his head, held in place by steel dowels that are attached to a brace on his chest. A traction halo. It holds his head onto his body well enough for him to stand up, but the rig makes him move like a rusty windup toy. Still, for a kid’s toy, he’s doing a pretty good job tuning up my ribs.

I deflect a couple of the blows with my arms, which feels just as good as it sounds. Kasabian is so stiff, he has to stand in one place to work me over. Lucky me. I swing one of my legs around and catch him behind the knee. He goes down on the knee, but refuses to fall over. Just keeps smashing me with the bat, teeth gritted, sweating and red-faced. But he’s working from close range now, so the shots hurt a lot less than before.

I swing my leg again. This time I hit the top of the metal halo. That gets his attention. Kasabian drops the bat and crab walks his way back, putting some distance between my foot and his head.

Except for the first surprise shot on the back of my skull, he hasn’t hurt me too much. Kasabian moves like he’s half frozen in ice. Can’t get up the strength to do any real damage. If he wasn’t up and walking around, I’d swear that his body was in rigor mortis. Maybe he’s afraid that if he wiggles around too much, his head will pop off. Let’s test that theory.

Still on the floor, I throw a kick at his head. Kasabian tries to move out of the way, but I’m faster than him. But I still miss. Okay. So that first smack on the head scrambled my brain a little more than I thought.

I go for the guns under the mattress, but my aim is still off. It gives Kasabian a chance to drive the bat into my ribs again. I’m breathing hard, trying to take in air every time it gets knocked out with another rib shot. I could probably throw a spell at Kasabian if my head was clearer and my chest wasn’t hurting. I can feel every single bruise from the Kissi attack. And all this wrestling around is waking up those bullets again. Fuck Kinski for being right about them getting angry again.

When Kasabian tries to jam me with the bat again, I move faster and get my hand on it. One twist and it’s out of his hands and bouncing off the floor. Kasabian backs up and braces himself against the wall. He reaches for something under his dirty trench coat, but he’s not fast enough. The world is settling down. Becoming firmer around me. I grab the bat and swing. It smashes into his halo, buckling and scattering the metal dowels.

Kasabian screams, “Fuck!” His head is hanging free, held on by just the stitches and the couple of remaining dowels. He gets his feet under him, braces his back against the wall, and pushes himself up until he’s standing. His eyes are wide. Not so much in anger anymore. He’s remembering what it was like the first time his melon came off and he doesn’t like the picture. That’s why his hands are shaking and he’s muttering, “No, no, no,” when he pulls what looks like a short tree branch out from under his coat. It wraps around his arm from the wrist to his elbow.

Now it’s my turn to scramble back. The skinhead at Carlos’s bar tried to shoot me with a Devil Daisy, but he didn’t know what he was doing. In a room this small, even a crippled, half-dead wreck like Kasabian couldn’t miss me. But I’m more worried about something worse.

I yell, “Stop!” and put up my hands. Kasabian just looks at me. I guess he wasn’t expecting such an easy surrender. He face splits into a big grin. He waves the Daisy around a little, stabbing the air with it, trying to intimidate me. He does, but not for the reasons he thinks.

“Listen to me, Kas. I know that Parker and Mason gave you that thing. If you use it, you’re going to die. For real this time. No second chances.”

“Kiss my ass, man. They helped me. Parker took me out of here. He and Mason gave me back my body.”

“Nice job they did, too. You look like Frankenstein’s ball sac. You can barely move. Don’t you think if they liked you they could find a spell to put your head back on for real?”

“That’s your fault! You and your goddamn knife. It left some kind of residual magic behind. No matter what we tried, my head wouldn’t go back on. Parker put together this traction rig for me. It sucks, but it’s better than spending the rest of my life in that closet watching infomercials until you decide to shoot me.”

“You’re right. I got a little more extreme with you than I meant to. Sorry. I wanted Mason, but I had you. You got some of the grief I was saving up for him. That wasn’t right. So. You know. Sorry.”

“Sorry? Even if you didn’t cut my head off, you came here to kill me. You think sorry covers that?”

“I’m not so sure you want to know the truth about that.”

Kasabian hoists the Devil Daisy up to face level. I take a couple more steps back, until I’m on the other side of the bed. Still in point-blank range.

“Tell me,” he says.

“When I got here, yeah, I planned on killing you. But after ten minutes, I was pretty much over that. I mean, how much more could I do? Mason did a pretty good job of wrecking you before I ever got here.”

“Yeah, but I stood up to you and he’s on my side again.”

“No, he’s not. He’s never been on your side and he never will be. You think he gave you your body and sent you back here to get me? This is a setup. You’re here to kill yourself. Me, too. But mostly you.”

“Look at you. Look how scared you are. You’ll say anything.”

“Ask me how Jayne and Cherry are. I double-dog dare you.”

“Why? Is that a trick question?”

“Yeah. Because they’re dead. Parker killed them. He’s killing everyone connected to him and Mason. If he gave you that weapon, it’ll probably kill me, but I guarantee that it’ll kill you.”

“You are such a liar. Not even a good one. Look how scared you are.”

“I’m scared you’re going to do something stupid.”

He pushes the Daisy in my direction.

“Don’t call me stupid!”

“Sorry. Just don’t do anything you—we—can’t take back.”

He starts to nod, but catches himself. The nod turns into a twitch as he pushes his shoulders and head back against the wall. His heart is a trip-hammer. His pupils narrow. Now that he’s done something dumb in front of me, he’s angrier than ever.

“Kas, Mason and Parker are using you.”

“Keep talking, dead man. I hear there’s a bunch of imps waiting for you with knives and forks.”

I take another step back. He’s going to do it. It’s building inside him.

“Don’t do it, man. You’ll die, too.”

The grin is back on his face.

“This is nice. This quiet moment before you die. Thanks for lying and whining. You made it really special for me.”

Oh, hell.

I know it’s coming, so I don’t wait. I dive for the floor. When he fires the Devil Daisy, I’m behind the bed collapsing the na’at to its spear configuration. I dig one end into the floor and, staying low, angle the shaft over me.

The first wave of dragon fire hits, tries to tear the na’at out of my hand. The intricate Hellion web of edges, angles, and teeth along the weapon’s body spreads the fire out and over me. Then the second thing happens. The one I’ve been worried about.

The Daisy explodes. The room turns into Dresden, burning under the Allied planes. It’s Rome while Nero fiddled and pissed on the panicked mobs. It’s Hamburg and Chicago and the Hindenburg all going off at once in my room. It’s all I can do to hold the na’at in place and channel the supernova on the other side of the bed anywhere but on top of me.

And it’s over. No fire. No smoke. No nothing. The Daisy has swallowed the remains of the fire. The room is a wreck. Lath is blown off the walls. Part of the ceiling is down. The junk on the bootleg table is scattered around the room like a hurricane blew through. All the windows are gone.

I pick up the charred bed and push it out of the way. Kasabian is lying under it. Considering how he looked before the explosion, he’s not looking that bad right now. His right arm is gone. The Daisy took that off when it blew. And his head has fallen off. I get down on my knees and push random junk out of the way. I spot it a minute later under the bed.

Poor stupid, idiotic, goddamn Kasabian. If he was still alive, I’d strangle him. Right now I kind of don’t mind him coming after me with the bat. I was pretty hard on him. He really did get me down on my knees and speaking in tongues for a minute, so he got at least a little of his own back before he made the big mistake of trusting Mason. Kasabian was an idiot, but he wasn’t stupid. He must have known that Mason hated him at best. Considered him an insect at worst. Did Kasabian really not know what was going to happen when he pulled that trigger? Or did he want to go out in a sexy murder-suicide that would make it onto the local news? Idiot reporters would get it all wrong. They’d think it was an insurance scam gone wrong. Or that we were clumsy terrorists. More likely, they’d go with the sexiest choice, a lovers’ quarrel gone nuclear. It’s more than an even bet that he wanted to kill us both. At least then, one person would know that he’d done something right. I’d know that he’d gotten me, that I was truly dead, and that there was nothing I could do about it.

I stand very quietly for a minute, listening for sirens. If I had time and a clear head, I could probably come up with a spell to keep everyone away or send them off in the wrong direction. But that’s not going to happen. I wait.

The sirens don’t come. The fire was here and gone so fast that while the Daisy wrecked the place, it’s sparing me from having to explain the headless body, all the guns, the video bootlegging gear and me. Who am I? Also technically dead, thanks. Just ask Homeland Security.

Someone’s cell phone goes off. It’s not my ring. I pat down Kasabian’s body. Pull his phone from a coat pocket. It’s one of the cheap prepaid models. I flip it open and wait.

“Well,” someone says. “What the hell, man? Is it done?”

“Who is this?”

There’s a pause. Then a low laugh.

“Stark? Is that you? Oh my God. What an asshole. I give Kasabian a flamethrower and a bomb and he still can’t kill you. Where is he?”

“All over the place. He’s in pieces.”

“One thing went right tonight, at least. You must be feeling pretty good right now, huh? Pretty proud of yourself. You kicked a headless guy’s ass. Thank you, masked man. You saved our city.”

I listen for signs of strain or stress in his voice. I wish I could see his eyes. Or catch a whiff of his sweat. But on the crap phone, Parker sounds thin, distant, and far away. Like he’s calling from the Marianas Trench.

“You’re the one who sent a half-dead guy to kill me. What did you think was going to happen?”

“I expected you to die, Mr. Bond,” he says in a bad German accent. “Actually, Mason and I had a bet. He thought Kasabian might be able to do one thing right one time. He told the fat man to his face how much faith he had in him. I guess I won that bet.”

“What happens now? You going to send more cripples after me? Blind guys with blowguns? Grandmas in wheelchairs with chain saws? What’s your next brilliant move? All I’ve seen you do so far is get your pitiful excuse for an assassin blown up and yourself shot in the back. How did that feel, by the way? Were you awake when you fell? I’m glad Mason saved you. It means I get to kill you all over again.”

“Calm down, sweetheart. You’re getting all worked up. Trust me. You’ll get your chance. We’re going to see each other again. Not here. Not now. But it’ll be soon. Cross my heart.”

“I can’t wait.”

“You don’t have to. Mason is sending you a late Christmas present. Don’t worry. No more explosions or ninja attacks tonight. Just a token of his and my esteem for staying alive this long. How did you stay alive down there, by the way? Did you suck demon cock all day every day, or did you get weekends and holidays off?”

“Pucker up, tough guy. You’ll know all about it soon enough.”

The line goes dead. I toss the phone into the corner of the room. At least I know one thing now. Parker took Kasabian to wherever Mason is hiding. He was with both of them. He’s seen their hideout and might have even heard them talking about what they’re planning next. Mason thought Kasabian was an idiot and knew that one way or another, he was going to be dead tonight. Why not talk in front of him? Make him feel like he’s part of the plan. If Mason convinced Kasabian that he’d been promoted and was going to get to play with the big boys, Kas wouldn’t have asked any questions, but would have run along like a dog to please him.

I need to talk to Kasabian. But I can’t get to him when he’s in Hell. No way I’m setting foot Downtown. I need to get to him before he hops the ferry.

I only know one way to do it and it’s really going to suck.

The Daisy has saved me the trouble of having to move the bootlegging table. I just push it up against the wall so it’s out of the way. I kick broken, powdery lath, boxes of DVDs, dirty clothes, cigarette butts, and Jack Daniel’s bottles out of the way until I clear an area about six by six on the floor. Aside from the furniture, most of the junk is pretty light. It’s easy to sift through until I find something that’s heavy. The lead Kinski gave me.

Start by drawing thirteen circles, six on the outside, and six on the inside, and one in the center. Take the lead and, at the outer top circle, draw a line across to the farthest. Then draw lines to the other circles on the outer rim so that they’re all connected. Now do the same thing with the other five outer circles. Wash, rinse, repeat on the inner circles until you have seventy-eight lines that connect all thirteen circles. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Metatron’s Cube. One of the holiest of holy glyphs. The soul of the angel Metatron, the voice of God. Good for keeping away imps, flesh-eating zombies, and ants at a picnic. It slices. It dices. It has a thousand and one uses. A thousand and two if you draw it on a brick and throw it through the windshield of your ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend’s car.

Kasabian’s head is still under the bed. I pull it out and set it on his chest, then grab his body by the ankles and drag him into the Cube. I straighten the arms and legs, set Kas’s head back on its shoulders, and generally try to make him look more like a respectable human being and less like a big pile of loser jerky.

Under one of the windows are the remains of the warning bundle Medea, the Inquisitor, left for me at Vidocq’s place. I leave the wolf teeth. All I need are the crow feathers. Pretty much any part of a crow is useful. Especially when you’re dealing with the dead. Crows are psychopomps. They guide the dead from this world to the next. There are quicker, more direct ways to get through to dead souls, but crow’s feathers are the smart way to go if you don’t want some clever boots to come along and pluck your soul out of your body while you’re distracted, waiting on line one for dead Aunt Lily to pick up.

I rip open Kasabian’s shirt, dip the feathers in his blood, and paint a smaller version of Metatron’s Cube on his chest. Then I open his mouth and put one of the feathers inside. I dip a finger into his blood and, with it, paint a circle over my third eye.

The one remaining unopened, unbroken bottle of Jack is under the mattress with the guns. I crack it open and have a couple of long drinks. Whatever I thought of Kasabian, whatever I thought that I might do to him when I tracked him down, painting him with his own blood and wearing some of it myself was never on my original agenda. One more drink and I’m ready to hit the road.

I lie down in the Cube next to Kasabian so that our shoulders and feet are touching. I use the black blade to cut one of my wrists, deep enough to really get the blood flowing, but not so deep that I lose control of my hands. I upend the bottle for one more shot of liquid courage, and then slice the other wrist.

Nice and relaxed now. Warm and drifting. The Jack and the flowing blood are doing their job. I’ll be unconscious soon. Just before I lose consciousness, I put the second crow feather between my teeth and hold it there.

I’m standing on the floor of an empty desert. The alkali plain is cracked and glistening. There’s a shaft of light at the horizon, but it never moves. It’s always just before sunrise or just after sunset. Take your pick. The air is thick and hard to breathe. The light is a watery blue green.

Kasabian is standing a few yards away wearing the same Max Overdrive T-shirt and chinos that he was wearing the night he shot me.

“So, this is it?” he asks. “This is death?”

I walk across the packed earth to where he’s standing.

“Not really. You’re kind of in between worlds right now. There really isn’t a desert and there really isn’t a sunrise or sunset. This is just something to look at while you wait. You’re sort of on hold and this is the Muzak.”

“While I’m waiting to see if I’m going to Heaven or damned to Hell, this is the best the all-knowing occult powers that run the universe could come up with? Talk about being underachievers.”

“Be fair, man. Everyone knows where you’re headed. Maybe they just didn’t break out the A material for you.”

Kasabian nods.

“You’re right. Why bother? I fucked up my life and I even fucked up dying.”

“So we’re clear, you know that wasn’t me who killed you just now, right? It was Parker.”

“I should never have trusted those guys. Why would Mason help me after all these years? I thought it was different now. I thought that with you back, he’d need me again.”

“Where is he?”

“Listen, you were straight with me before. You know, saying you were sorry for locking me up in that closet and everything. I want to be straight with you.”

“Don’t worry about it. There isn’t a lot of time. Where’s Mason hiding?”

Kasabian looks over his shoulder to the mountains in the distance. There’s a low rumble of thunder. It won’t be long now. He turns back to me.

“I knew something was up that night. I knew Mason had something waiting for you. I thought he was just going to hit you with a leech charm or something. Suck out all your power and keep it for himself. But when those Lurkers showed up …”

“Kissi. They’re called Kissi.”

“I didn’t know he was going to do that.”

“What did you know about Alice?”

“Nothing. I’m not into doing stuff like that to women. And a civilian? That’s messed up.”

“Would you have told me if you’d known?”

He shrugs. Looks down. Shakes his head.

“Come on, man. That’s not even a real question. Going against Mason feels like you’re going against the devil.”

I can’t read a dead man like a living one. No heartbeat. No breath. Fixed pupils. But I don’t need any of that now.

“I believe you,” I tell him. “And Mason isn’t the devil. He just likes to play dress-up. Tell me where he is and I’ll get him for both of us.”

“I don’t know where he is exactly. It was sort of like here. Spooky and wrong, but a lot weirder. Somewhere far away and dark. Not regular dark, either. Dark like it had no idea what light even was. Like light was Kryptonite to the place. There was no one there, but it wasn’t empty. In fact, it was crowded. But it was full of nothing.” He holds up his hands in frustration. “If any of that makes sense.”

Thunder rolls down the mountains again. A dot of light appears at the base of one a couple of miles away. A door has opened. I take Kasabian by the arm and start walking him that way.

“Listen, when you get to Hell, look up a guy named Belial. He’s one of Lucifer’s generals. Tell him I sent you and ask him for a job. Tell him I said not to send you to the pits.”

“The pits?” asks Kasabian. “What pits?”

“When you tell him who sent you, make sure you tell him it was Sandman Slim. And remind him that the Sandman knows where he lives.”

Kasabian gives me a look.

“What the fuck is Sandman Slim? It sounds like a Japanese cartoon.”

“Just tell him,” I say, and let go of his arm. “This is as far as I go. I have things to do back in the world.”

Kasabian looks at the door and then at me.

“I know,” he says. He turns and heads for the mountain. “I’ll see you around.”

“Probably.”

Flat on my back again. I gulp and the crow feather almost goes down my throat. Rolling over, I spit it onto the floor. Home again, home again, jiggity jig.

I’m not bleeding anymore, but I’m a mess. Again. Besides getting my ass kicked, my main accomplishment on this trip has been to massacre an incredible number of completely innocent clothes. I’m the Joseph Stalin of laundry. I take off the shirt, toss it onto a pile of other junk, and slip on the silk overcoat.

My ears are still ringing, but I’m pretty sure there aren’t any sirens headed this way (the crackheads aren’t going to call it in and who else hangs out here at night?). But some passing Joe Citizen could call in the noise. And the morning crew will be opening the place at eleven tomorrow. I can’t leave Kasabian’s corpse lying here. First, I have to find something.

I find it under the splinters of the bedside table. Alice’s magic box. It’s been crushed a little by the blast. Inside, the bloody cotton has come loose, but it’s still in one piece. I put it under the bed, near the wall.

I pull the blanket off the bed, roll up the body, and use some duct tape I get from behind the counter to hold the blanket tight. I take Kasabian downstairs and out the back way. Also grab a couple of cinder blocks that the day crew uses when they’re on a cigarette break. I’m trying very hard not to think about anything I’m doing. Of all the iffy things I’ve ever done in my life, I’ve never had to ditch a body before. While it’s giving me a migraine right now, I think the fact that I’m not an expert on corpse disposal says a lot of good things about me and my life choices.

About a block away, I find a shiny new BMW SUV, which is way too many random letters strung together. It makes me feel less guilty about stealing it.

I drive it around the block, pull up to Max Overdrive, and load the body and the cinder blocks in the back. Then I drive to Fairfax and turn south. At Wilshire, I make a left and hit the gas until I see mammoths.

Animals have been falling into the La Brea Tar Pits since the last ice age. Not so much recently, since the pits are fenced in and part of a pretty slice of upscale urban green called Hancock Park. There’s a big museum. A lot of wolf skulls and bird bones. A gift shop. And, soon, a dead video store-owning ex-magician.

There’s not a lot of traffic on this part of Wilshire late at night. I hop the curb and pull the van up onto the brick walkway that leads to the museum. When I figure out which light pole I want, I gun the engine and smash the BMW into it at full speed. The van’s windshield and front bumper are totaled. Steam billows from under the hood. The good news is that the pole with the surveillance camera is now a big aluminum toothpick by the museum’s front door.

If you ever need to weigh down a dead body, remember that it’s not hard duct-taping cinder blocks to a stiff, but it is hard getting them balanced right. I’m sure that with enough time and practice, I could come up with a corpse-cinder-block arrangement stable enough that a tightrope walker could use it, but I don’t have time for that now. I’m parked on a major thoroughfare in a stolen van. I have no shirt, an expensive overcoat, and fresh scars on my wrists. And I’m dragging around a dead guy accessorized with building materials. This is not a precise or subtle situation. This is a situation for mindless violence and brute force. First good news I’ve had all day.

I get Kasabian’s weighted body onto my shoulder and haul it out of the van. I drop him on his back a few yards outside the fence. I stoop and grab the body by the ankles, then I start spinning, holding the body like the hammer in a hammer throw. After a few revolutions, I’m dizzy, but have a pretty good head of steam up. When I release him, Kasabian goes flying. He sails through the air end over end, like some long-forgotten Russian space probe returning to Earth, off course and out of control.

The body hits the tar with a thick, dull thunk. At first, it doesn’t move. Kasabian floats on the surface defiantly, a corpse burrito refusing to sink. Demanding to be eaten by one of the local dinosaurs lying at the bottom of the pit. Finally, he realizes how unreasonable he’s being, and starts to go under. Slowly. Very slowly. Kasabian’s head disappears. Then his gut. When all that’s left of him above the surface are his shins and feet, I leave. Even if the surface of the tar lake is disturbed in the morning, I think the police will be more interested in the stolen van.

It’s a long, exhausting walk back to Max Overdrive. When I get back to the room, all I can do is flip the mattress clean side up. I don’t bother taking off the overcoat. I lie down in it and get some clean towels from the bathroom to use as a pillow.

All night long, the song someone played once at the Bamboo House of Dolls loops in my head.

“Set me adrift and I’m lost over there

And I must be insane, to go skating on your name,

And by tracing it twice, I fell through the ice

Of Alice …”

Are there people smart enough to know how doomed they are before the world crashes down on them, the way pianos fall on people in old cartoons? There must be, but I’ve never been one of them. Before my trip down the rabbit hole, I figured that I could joke, lie, and bullshit my way through pretty much anything. That’s what’s known as being a professional brat, and I was Superman at that.

Alice never liked Mason and didn’t really trust the rest of the Circle. Neither did I. At least the old, sharp-tooth reptile part of my brain didn’t, but that just made playing with them and being better than them more fun. Especially being better than Mason. Alice could never see the fun. She talked about the Circle like it was crystal meth and I was an addict.

“Didn’t your mommy and daddy teach you that if you play with the bad kids, you’re going to be kept after school?”

“My mom told me I was the handsomest boy in the world. My father taught me to shoot and how to smile while getting the back of someone’s hand. That’s pretty much all I remember.”

She was wearing a white wifebeater and black panties. She was making coffee, but stopped, came over, and sat on my lap.

“That’s why I love you. You’re Norman Rockwell’s perfect boy. Don’t go out with those magic assholes tonight. Stay home with me. We’ll eat apple pie and fuck on a flag.”

“I’ve got to go. Mason’s got something big to show us tonight. I need to be there to piss on his parade.”

She got up and went back to the kitchen.

“Fine. Go, then. Go and show a bunch of losers that you’re better than them. That’s huge. That’s a fucking accomplishment.”

“This is important. You don’t understand. If you had the gift, you’d know. Most of the Sub Rosa are rich dicks or Goth kids without the clove cigarettes. But I need to be around magic people sometimes. People I don’t have to explain myself to.”

“You need to show off to them more than you need to be with me. They’re dangerous and they’re going to suck you into something dangerous and stupid, like summoning the devil or something. And when they get killed or thrown in jail, you’re going with them.”

I grabbed my jacket and went to the door.

“I need to go. I’m late.”

“You know, trying to still be the precocious one isn’t that cute after you’re old enough to buy beer. Grow up. Stop being such a fucking child.”

Walking out, I said, “You know, sometimes you sound just like those regular jack-offs out there. You say you don’t care about the magic. You say you’re not jealous, but you are. You want what I have or you don’t want me to have it at all. Fuck that.”

Later that night, Mason played his little trick on me and I never saw Alice again.

Only now she’s standing at the foot of the bed, staring at the wrecked room. She doesn’t have to say a word. I know what she’s thinking because it’s what I’m thinking. That the mess is a kind of metaphor for my life. She sighs. Picks up small things, drops them, then picks up something else. She shakes her head in wonder at all the junk until I feel ashamed and stupid.

I know that none of this is real. This Alice is a golem. The present Parker said Mason would be sending me. This sighing ghost isn’t Alice any more than the slab of meat I tossed into the tar pits was Kasabian.

The golem’s eyes are milky gray. Its skin is cracked and stained with red, green, and brown lichen, like old granite. Its broken teeth ooze blood. Golem Alice’s fingertips are bare bone, like something has been gnawing at them.

Unfortunately, knowing that something isn’t real doesn’t mean it’s going to go away or that it doesn’t affect you. When she isn’t eyeballing the wreckage of my mini Pompeii, Alice is leaning over me and whispering in my ear.

“You wouldn’t throw me into the black tar, would you, Jimmy? There’s no air down there. And it’s so dark. You wouldn’t do that to me, would you, baby?”

THE MORNING CREW arrives like a herd of baby elephants jacked up on lattes and enough mutant energy drinks to give a rhino a stroke. The crew is an ever-shifting posse of film school hipster dudes. I don’t know any of their names and I don’t want to. They’re just Blond Surfer Dude. Billy Goat Beard Surfer Dude. Dreads Dude, etc. They really are dudes. Sleepy eyes. IQs drowning in bong water. They invent complicated filing systems for the movies because the alphabet baffles them.

One of them knocks on my door. I open it without putting on a shirt. My wrists have healed, but there’s dried blood on my hands. I hope I didn’t ruin the overcoat. Time to look for a dry cleaner.

It’s Billy Goat Beard Surfer Dude. He smells like he used bong water for aftershave. My lack of a shirt and the blood don’t even register.

He says, “Um, a bunch of the shelves in the porn section fell down last night. What do you want us to do?”

For a second, I wonder if he’s kidding. Then I remember who he is.

“Maybe one of you should go and clean it up.”

“Okay, but I’m the only one who can work the register. Bill’s allergic to dust and Rudy just got born again, so he’s a no-porn zone till he gets over it.”

“So, none of you is capable of walking to the back of the store and picking up the movies?”

“I guess not. Plus, there’s cracks in the ceiling. Looks like there’s cracks in there, too,” he says, pointing into the room. I pull the door closed a little.

“Fuck it. It’s porn. People who want it will paw through it wherever it is. Hell, they might like it better down there. Maybe we should put the whole porn section in a big pile on the floor.”

“What?”

I forgot. The only things that are funny when you’re as buzzed as Billy Goat Beard are cartoon animals and seeing other people get hurt.

“Never mind. Just open the store and let me get dressed.”

“When is Mr. Kasabian coming back?”

I look at the kid. Does this doe-eyed weed monkey suspect something? Am I going to have to lobotomize this twerp?

“When he’s damn good and ready,” I say.

“Okay.” He walks away, like he’s already forgotten the whole conversation.

I throw the dead bolt when I close the door. Need to start locking the room up all the time. Too many weapons in here. Too much blood on the floor. Too much residual magic in the walls. All I need is for some stoned teenybopper to take a post-weed nap in Metatron’s Cube and wake up with his soul on a hook in some stalker’s trading booth in the souk.

I clean up in the bathroom. There’s a brownish-red ring around the drain. I need to get some bleach before all the blood I’ve been leaking into the sink stains it permanently. I wonder if Kasabian had any accident or maybe earthquake insurance. I saw official-looking papers in one box—I’ll have to track that down. It’d be nice for Allegra to be able to get the place fixed up when I’m gone and she takes over.

The overcoat is wadded in a ball at the end of the bed. It looks pretty rough. Praise Lucifer that my jeans are black. Blood’s not so obvious on them. I find a box with the last of the Max Overdrive T-shirts in my size and slip it on. The only thing I have to wear over the T-shirt that will hide a weapon is the half-burned motocross jacket. I’ll look a little crazy in it, but it’s still wearable. Because it’s such a wreck, I don’t have any regrets about tearing the lining open so I can slip the na’at inside. I’ll still pack Azazel’s knife for backup, but from now on, my primary weapons are the ones that will keep attackers the hell away from me. I didn’t crawl back to Earth just to go bankrupt buying new shirts.

It takes me a minute to find where I stashed Muninn’s money. I slipped it into the back of a Val Lewton box set that was blown against the far wall. I take a wad of bills from inside and toss the box on the bed.

With the overcoat tucked under my arm, I lock up the room and slip out the back without any of the dudes seeing me.

Aelita is waiting in the alley, standing there like the angel of death in librarian drag. I drop the coat and take a couple of steps into the alley so my back isn’t pinned to the wall.

I say, “You’re big on the Fortune magazine look. Know any decent dry cleaners around here?”

She shakes her head and shoots poison darts at me with her eyes. Or she wishes she could.

“The Vigil saw you last night. What you did with that man. You’re disgusting.”

“I’m an Abomination. What do you expect? If you clowns really did have me on your radar, you’d know I was just taking out the trash and that I didn’t kill Kasabian. He was killed by someone you should have dealt with a long time ago.”

“You followed the poor man into death and tormented him even there.”

“I talked to him. I gave him a job recommendation. I helped him more than you ever helped me.”

“I offered you help just yesterday. Help and redemption.”

“You helped me so much that I had to get glued back together again by Doc Kinski.”

“Don’t speak that name in front of me!” she shouts. “He’s the only creature alive more vile than you.”

“Thanks. You hating Kinski makes me feel a lot better about the guy. Maybe I’ll let him cut me open after all.”

“Why wait? I can do that for you right now.”

“Yeah, but when Kinski cuts me, he won’t have a hard-on while he’s doing it.”

“You dare speak to an angel of the Lord that way?”

“If I hurt your feelings, get God down here so I can tell Him to His face.”

“Maybe you are worse than Kinski.”

“You’re the most useless thing I’ve ever met. Even the worst Hellion has a purpose. What’s yours? You can’t keep a treaty from falling apart that might destroy the world. You don’t even go after Mason. Why is that?”

“Don’t you dare interrogate me. We’ve been looking for Mason for many years.”

“But that’s not the same as finding him, is it? I mean, the way no one seems to be dealing with the guy makes me wonder if there isn’t something else going on.”

“We are agents of Heaven and do its bidding.”

“And while you do, you let Parker roam around free, slaughtering people, hoping he’ll lead you back to the big boy. How many people has Parker killed in the last eleven years and you didn’t do anything about it?”

“You’re suddenly so concerned about death? People die around you every day and you barely seem to notice. What does that make you?”

“Fuck you, angel. Fuck you and all God’s little prison bitches. He slips you some cigarettes and a con job smile and you run off to do his dirty work for him. Go and scare some sinners. No one’s listening to you here.”

I can’t read an angel the way I can a human, but I can read a fighter’s body. Aelita shifts slightly, sliding one foot back a few millimeters at a time, letting her weight settle on her back leg.

“God can still save you, Abomination. He can’t change the vile thing you are, but through me he can save you from perdition.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather go to Hell.”

“So be it.”

Aelita must have been holding back yesterday. She manifests her flaming sword incredibly fast and shoots forward like a bullet. Thing is, I’m pretty fast, too. Especially when I know what an opponent is going to do. Before she charges me, I already have the na’at out, extended, and I’m sidestepping her. When she blasts forward at me, she also impales herself on one side of the na’at, like she’s run onto the cutting edge of a chain saw.

Aelita freezes for a second, stunned to find her angelic body sliced through. That gives me a chance to give the na’at a slight turn so that the barbs lock into her. She lets out a monstrous roar, something to rattle Heaven’s gates. Buildings shudder and car alarms go off. I can’t let go of the na’at to cover my ears. Her scream is like a vise crushing my skull.

She swings her sword at my head and tries to move forward, but she’s stuck on the na’at. I push a stud in the handle and step back, locking her in place while extending the na’at so her sword can’t reach me.

Aelita is strong. She lunges at me, but each time she moves she just drives the na’at’s razor edge deeper into her body. She stops moving and stands there bleeding. Turning pale. After a few minutes, her sword dims and flickers out. She refuses to fall. She won’t submit to an Abomination. If I didn’t hate her so much already, I’d probably like her.

Then she crumbles all at once. Like someone pulled the plug and shut her down. When she’s flat on her back, I turn the na’at to release the barbs, pull it from her chest, and retract it.

Slipping it back inside my jacket, I go over to have a look at her. Her eyes are open, and even though she’s looking up, I know she’s not looking at the sky. She’s looking a lot farther away than that. I wonder what she sees.

“You’ll suffer for this, Abomination. Do you know that? God sees everything and He sees you.”

“Does He see you? I have an idea. Call God to come down and save you.” I look up at the sky with her. “Nothing.” I look down again and shrug. “I guess you’re expendable, too.”

“I hate you more than anything I’ve ever seen or known.”

“There we go. The truth. You hate me. Not for God’s sake, but for yours. Feels good, doesn’t it? Feels human.”

I wonder if an angel can die the way humans do. I wonder what happens to their bodies. Does their spirit go back to Heaven or Hell or do they just evaporate?

I kneel by Aelita’s head. She looks up at me, sort of blank.

“I’ve been thinking about it. Remember when I asked you why God left me in Hell and you said that He probably thought I was where I should be? Maybe He thought I should be here today. To face you down in this alley. Maybe He wants me to finish what I came here for, only to do that, I had to get past you first. It’s something for both of us to think about.”

Aelita straightens out her arm and tries to manifest her sword. A fighter to the end. Maybe I do like her a little after all. No. I don’t.

I don’t really believe that angels can die the way we do. And God wouldn’t let an important one like Aelita go so easily. Wells and his Golden Vigil buddies and half of Homeland Security are probably on their way over right now. Time for me to find a cleaners, buy some clothes, and generally, not be here.

THERE’S ONE GOOD way to always get what you want from someone who doesn’t necessarily want to sell you something. Pay in advance and pay too much. When you’re dropping off a coat covered in blood and plaster dust, it’s no time to cheap out. The old lady behind the dry-cleaning counter gives me a I-might-call-the-cops look over the tops of her glasses. I slip her one of Muninn’s hundred-dollar bills, and just like that, all is forgiven. The coat will be ready later tonight. Civilians really need to remember this. Cash is the magic that anyone can do.

Where did all the Kissi go? The streets were lousy with them yesterday and now they’re as gone as a Friday blockbuster with a bad weekend gross.

What the hell is wrong with L.A.? Full of magicians, alchemists, bloodsuckers, soul suckers, the Golden Vigil, and federally funded angels, and no one’s been able to touch Mason? That doesn’t make any sense. It stinks of protection. It smells like a conspiracy, but I don’t believe in conspiracies. Guys will say anything to get laid. If some CIA guy thought he could get a little action by showing a coed how he was the guy on the Grassy Knoll, he’d do it and we’d all know about it by now. But if there’s no conspiracy, what does that mean? Maybe there’s an ass-hole A-list that no one told me about. Shake hands with the forces of darkness and get a gift bag from Neiman Marcus and a free pass on murder and apocalyptic power plays.

Is Mason bulletproof because he’s tight with the Kissi? Is everyone really that afraid? What did he have to do to cozy up to that celestial vermin anyway? What did he have to steal? Who did he have to kill? What Lovecraftian sewer slug did he have to blow to get up close and personal with God’s bastard kids?

I don’t believe in conspiracies, but I do believe in bullshit and I believe I’m up to my balls in it right now.

I throw the Veritas and it comes up showing a tangle of what looks almost like barbed wire. The thorn forest in Sheol, Downtown’s wild western region. Caatinga thorns will strip and debone anything that wanders into them faster than a piranha with a chain saw. Roughly translated, the Hellion script around the edge of the coin reads, It’s not too late to go back and get your GED. I can’t tell anymore if the Veritas is giving me advice or just making fun of my doomed ass.

I’ve pretty much used up any sense of charity or obligation I might have had in this lifetime, but I don’t want to turn into just another L.A. dick looking out for number one. I get out my cell and dial Allegra’s number. She doesn’t pick up. I dial my old number, but no one picks up at Vidocq’s. I text Allegra the way I’d seen her text her friends: Keep yr doors locked. Mason 3’s suicide bombers.

I wonder if Wells and his G-men have picked up Aelita. It couldn’t hurt to make a quick check. The Chinese believe that having a funeral home near your store is bad luck in general and lousy for business. How bad must a dying angel outside your back door be?

I pick up a Jag outside a raw food restaurant next to a tanning salon. Isn’t a tanning salon in L.A. like a frostbite salon in Fairbanks?

There’s no one is behind me, so I can do a slow drive-by at Max Overdrive and get a look in the alley. Aelita isn’t there. There’s no blood. No scorch mark from her sword. No sign that anything has ever happened there. Thank you, Marshal. I’ll drink to your health on New Year’s.

I’D BE A happy camper if between now, when I kill Mason, and when I’m back Downtown, I didn’t have to speak to anyone. But that’s not how this is going to work out. I drive the Jag over to Allegra’s apartment and pound on her door. Do it loud enough and long enough that one of her neighbors comes out and explains to me that she hasn’t been home in a couple of days and that I should fuck off. I drive over to Vidocq’s and ditch the Jag a few blocks away. There’s a little bodega on the corner. I step into a shadow beside it. Two gray-haired men sitting on plastic milk crates and drinking beer ignore the weird white boy doing weird-white-boy stuff.

Vidocq’s door is open. That’s not so bad all on its own. The door opens and closes all the time when he goes in and out. But now it’s standing open and the vaguely diffuse glow that signals a glamour is gone, like someone took soap and water and washed it off.

“When did they put an apartment in over there?”

A nosy neighbor stands down the hall staring at the open door. He wants to see it, but he won’t get any closer, like maybe the place is radioactive.

“Stay here,” I tell him, and reach under my jacket for the na’at. The day I don’t pack a gun, that’s when I really want one.

“Should you go in there? Should I call the landlord?”

I throw him a quick keep-talking-and-you’ll-be-shitting-out-your-tongue look and he backs off.

There’s something really wrong with the apartment. Like the one out-of-tune string on a guitar. I can feel it before I even get inside. When I step over the threshold, something else hits. A taste and a smell. Vinegar at the back of my throat. Josef smelled like that when the Kissi revealed themselves. Not that I need another clue that there’s something wrong with Vidocq’s place.

The walls, ceiling, and floor are covered in twisting, spiky ideograms and letters, intertwined with endless spirals. Spirit faces or maybe images of God the Father, looking more like some saucer-eyed alien than a deity, are smeared around the room. The colors run from rust to a snaky, metallic green, but I’ve smelled enough dried blood in my time to know what the basic ingredient in all these pigments is.

I stop and I listen, waiting for something. The nosy neighbor is so freaked out, I can feel his heart and breathing. Don’t stroke out, guy. We’ve got enough problems here.

Or not. I don’t feel anything. There’s nothing alive in the apartment. I can’t read the Kissi, but between my own heightened senses and the new sight that Aelita has given me, I think I’d know if there was a Kissi lurking in the corner with a lamp shade on its head. As much as I don’t want to wrestle anything magic for a while, not finding a single Kissi is a letdown. Finding the body is worse.

It’s a man’s body. Naked. Nailed face-first to the wall about six feet off the ground. Someone has carefully peeled back the outer layers of skin. Let them fall back like pale, fleshy leaves on a plant, leaving the muscles and bones untouched. There are only two or three drops of blood on the floor. At least I know where the blood for the frescoes came from. And that whoever peeled and drained a body that cleanly really knew what he or she or they were doing.

The body is nailed the wrong way around for me to see the face. I can tell from here that it’s the body of a middle-aged man. Vidocq has been in his fifties for two hundred years. Is that still middle-aged? I wish the old bastard had some tattoos I could look for. The body is too badly beaten up to look for scars.

I know I should take the body down. All I have to do is stand on a chair, yank the nails from the hands, and it’s taken care of. But I don’t want to get near it. I can’t look away, either. I had the same reaction seeing my father at the funeral home. I couldn’t get near him and I couldn’t move away. My brain knew that I needed to react, but my body wouldn’t go along with any of it. I only got over it by forcing myself to go to my father’s body and touch his face. Looking just vapor-locked my brain. I had to feel that he was dead.

There’s a stepladder next to the refrigerator in the kitchen. I bring it to the living room and open it up right below the body. Before I can start the dirty work, out of the corner of my eye I see the nosy neighbor sticking his nosy face in where it shouldn’t be.

“Oh God. Oh my God. I’m calling the cops.”

I move fast. Fast enough that I scare him more than the body does. Before he can finish dialing, I snatch the cell phone out of his hand and perp-walk him to a window. Lean him out and make him watch as I drop his phone into a Dumpster several floors below.

I say, “Go get it. Then you can call.”

Nosy Neighbor looks at me like I just told him that I’m Darth Vader and I fucked his sister, but he doesn’t say a word. He heads straight for the stairs.

Back at the body, I pull the nails from the feet first. They’re some kind of heavy concrete nail. Perfect for going through muscle and bone and into a wall stud.

With the feet free, I can get the body down on the ground. I climb onto the top step of the stepladder. Yank one nail out of one hand and the other out of the other. Suddenly free, the body drops heavily into my arms. The limbs flop. The head tilts, snaps, and falls off.

Too much. I let go and it hits the ground.

I should have seen it the moment I started to move the body, but I was distracted, trying to decide between collapsing into a queasy heap or pulling a John Wayne to see what was right in front of me.

Kasabian’s corpse is lying on the floor. That’s why the body is so beaten up. The Kissi didn’t torture Vidocq. They just stitched back together what Parker blew apart last night.

How do you steal and clean a body from the bottom of a ten-thousand-year-old tar pit? Why do you steal and clean a body from the bottom of a ten-thousand-year-old tar pit?

And if Kasabian’s boomerang corpse is here on the floor, where are Vidocq and Allegra?

My phone rings. I thumb it on.

“Boo. Fooled you with your own dead guy.” It’s Parker. “I bet right about now you’re wondering where your friends are.”

“How are you seeing me?”

“Look around you, shit for brains. There’s eyes everywhere.”

“The paintings.”

“There’s this thing called magic. Maybe you’ve heard of it.”

“Where are Vidocq and Allegra?”

“Relax, sweetheart. They’re fine. In fact, we’re having a New Year’s party tonight and you’re invited.”

“At Avila?”

“How do you walk around with that big brain? Yeah, Avila. It’ll be a blast. We’re gonna raise a little hell. Get your ass there before midnight.”

“I’ll be there.”

“This is a personal invitation. No guests. No plus ones. If I see a cloud of dust behind you, Señor Frog and that little slice of cherry pie go right in the wood chipper.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Before midnight. That’s twelve. When the big hand and the little hands are straight up.”

“Either one of them gets hurt, I’m going to personally teach you the Tombstone Dog Paddle.”

“That another scary trick you learned in Hell?”

“No. Wild Bill told my great-granddad about it. It’s where I take you down the river. Someplace the ground is soft and wet. I break your arms and legs. You fingers and toes. Your neck and back. I dig a hole in the wet, soft ground, put you inside, and fill it back up. Then I have a cigarette and wait for you to dig your way out.”

“Before twelve,” says Parker, and hangs up.

IF I LEARNED anything Downtown, it’s this: the only real difference between an enemy and a friend is the day of the week.

I go back to where I abandoned the Jag, jam the knife in the ignition, and aim the car west, then south, heading back along the same surface streets I traveled with Wells once before. A good sense of direction can get you into or out of a lot of trouble.

Who’s higher on the food chain? The Golden Vigil or Homeland Security? The feds are probably picking up the tab for the operation, but that probably has more to do to with Washington control freaks and politicians who want their names next to supersecret intelligence groups. Wanting to put Ran CIA or Busted terrorist cell on your résumé when you run for president seems obvious, but would telling people that you run angels and G-men who keep the world safe from chaos creatures on the edge of the universe help your political career or get you a syringe full of Thorazine and a lifetime supply of adult diapers? What does whoever runs the Vigil back in D.C. put on their quarterly work reports? At least, the people that person reports to must know what the Vigil does. But what do you tell oversight committees and budget fascists? “We need that extra billion for a gun that will turn vampires into dog food and dark angels into the filling for Bavarian cream doughnuts.” Who runs this sideshow and what do they want?

If what I’d read was right, it was all a joke anyway. Before the morning herd came into Max Overdrive this morning, I looked up the Golden Vigil on an occult encyclopedia Web site. The Golden Vigil has been around at least since the First Crusade in the eleventh century. That’s when the Brits and the French started writing about it.

According to some of those stories, the Vigil was a splinter cell of the original Hashishin, the frat-house assassination cult that was the Al Qaeda of its day. While the regular Hashishin stuck to Dirty Harry jihadist political power-structure attacks, the Golden Vigil went after invisible enemies.

The French chroniclers insist that the Vigil is much older than most people realize, and that its origins might actually explain how and why some of the first tribes stopped chasing game up and down the Fertile Crescent and settled down to build the world’s first trailer parks along the Euphrates. If the Kissi have been here for as long as Aelita said, it makes sense. It means that the Vigil has been around for at least eight to ten thousand years. Even longer, if the tribes were negotiating with the Kissi when they first wandered up out of Africa. That would push the Vigil’s origins back to around seventy thousand years, according to another encyclopedia site.

Which brings us back to the question of who’s the big meat eater along this food chain, Homeland Security or the Golden Vigil? Whoever controls the money is in the driver’s seat. The gray-suit guys back east might pony up the money now, but I have a hard time believing that if Washington pulled the plug, the Vigil couldn’t support itself. You can stuff a lot of loot into the cookie jar over seventy thousand years.

WHEN I PULL into the parking lot of the Vigil’s warehouse, a couple of G-men dressed like rent-a-cops hold up their hands for me to stop. Being highly trained security professionals with keen powers of observation, they leap and lurch out of the way when they see that I’m not slowing down. By the time I’m up to the warehouse entrance and out of the Jag, six of them have surrounded me and each one of them has an identical Glock 9mm pointed at my head. I hate Glocks. Guys who love Glocks love Corvettes. Not because it was a hot car, but because it was cool forty years ago and they once saw a picture of Steve McQueen in one. Their dad probably had a Vette when he was young, but he was never cool. But if they have a Vette, maybe they can forget the fat man who made them mow the lawn when they should have been out with their friends sneaking into R-rated movies, and who embarrassed them in front of their first girlfriends. Maybe their dad was the guy driving fast and locking lips with Faye Dunaway in The Thomas Crown Affair. Maybe their dad was cool after all and maybe that made them cool, too. That’s what Glocks are. High-precision killing machines that scream “Daddy Issues.”

They come on attack-dog fierce, but no one seems eager to pull the trigger. Lucky me. I don’t want to get shot. Lucky them. I know these guys are just the hired help, but right now I really want to hurt someone.

A couple of them are talking into their sleeves, nodding to the air. Another minute of the silent Sergio Leone standoff and Wells comes out of the warehouse, banging the door open.

“I ought to let these men shoot you. You drove straight here, shitsack. Did you, even for a second, think about who might be watching or tailing you?”

“Not even for a second.”

He nods to his men.

“Bring him inside.”

“I want to talk to you, not your Boy Scouts.”

“I don’t want to talk to you at all out here. Shut up until we’re somewhere secure.”

I keep my mouth shut. I don’t need any more enemies. Well, any more enemies who want to see me turned into chum any more than they already do.

We pass through the electric Jell-O interior barrier and the work floor appears. It’s different inside. Like Vegas on the Fourth of July. All lights, machine noise, a din of voices, welding sparks like fireworks. Vigil members are trying out new weapons. Some look like modified guns. Others are like metal parasites attached to their backs, wrapping around their arms and waists. Across the warehouse, they’re prepping vehicles. I don’t see Aelita, but then, there’s no reason she’d want to see me.

Wells says, “We’re kinds of busy right now, so talk fast.”

“I thought you’d like to know that a couple of civilians have been kidnapped and dragged up to Avila.”

“Friends of yours? Then I doubt they’re civilians, in the true sense of the word. I mean, in the sense that anyone gives a rat’s ass about.”

“You’re going to leave a couple of innocent people hanging because you have a beef with me?”

“I don’t think you’d know innocent if it rode up and bit you in the balls. And, for your information, I don’t leave innocent people hanging.”

“Then what are you going to do about it?”

Wells sweeps his arm around at all the activity.

“I’m going back to work. We’re a little busy right now. Thanks for stopping by.”

He turns away, but I put my hand on his shoulder. Hard. Come up right behind him, close enough to snap his neck. When I feel him tense, I know he knows it. I say it all quietly and evenly.

“I can go up there and tear Avila apart on my own. I’m far from bulletproof and they have enough firepower that I’m pretty sure they’ll kill me, but I’m going to take a lot of people with me, including every magician in the place. A fight like that, it can’t be helped if some of Avila’s rich clientele gets burned, including the richest, most important ones. Imagine the shitstorm when all those old-money families and the Sub Rosa find out that you knew what was going down and did nothing about it. Or, you and your Mouseketeers can come with me and we can take the place down together.”

“You’re a day late and a dollar short, Chuck. What do you think all this is? We’re hitting Avila tonight.”

“If you’re not going for the civilians, what are you going for?”

“We’re trying to stop the end of the world, asshole. Which, by the way, is entirely your fault.”

I let go of him. He turns around and faces me, rubbing where I held him. He’s not lying. I can see that right away. His heart is hammering like a car running third at NASCAR. He smells like anger with a little fear mixed in, but no lies.

“Keep talking,” I say.

“You know why you piss me off? It’s not that stunt on Rodeo Drive, your schoolyard threats, your pixie friends, or even you wanting to kill every living thing in sight. It’s that you think you’re alone in the world and that there’s nothing going on except for you and your problems.”

“Enlighten me. What, are you and your cowboys going up there with your Flash Gordon toys to make them turn down their music?”

He looks over his shoulder, then back at me.

“Do you even know what Avila is? What’s going on up there?”

“I’ve been there. It’s the best little whorehouse in Purgatory. So what?”

“Yeah, to the college boys and businessmen in the dumb-ass front rooms, but Avila is a lot more than that to insiders. Avila is a dark-magic power site in a city that’s one big power site. What’s today’s date?”

“I have no idea.”

“That’s what I mean. You don’t know anything. It’s New Year’s Eve. It’s not just another frat party. Tonight is a ritual night. The ritual. At midnight, you know all those angels they’ve been fucking in the back room? They’re going to sacrifice each and every one, and when they do, they’re going to open up the gates of Hell and let your pal Lucifer and all his Hellion armies stroll through L.A. like it’s the goddam Easter parade.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Mason runs Avila; why would he want to destroy the world? It could be the Kissi. They’d love the chaos, but why would they want competition from Hellions?”

“Avila was built for this one purpose. They’ve been kidnapping and turning angels into whores for as long as anyone can remember.”

“And how is this any of my fault?”

“Because you wouldn’t stay put. Because you were in Hell, which is the only place that damned key you’re carrying around is safe. But Mason got you back here by killing your girlfriend, the one thing he knew you couldn’t let go of.”

“Would you have let him get away with that?”

“It’s not me or my girl we’re talking about. You bringing that key to Earth is like opening a tiny crack in the universe. The ritual tonight is going to kick that crack wide open. That’s why he killed your girl now. He needed you to get the key to Earth before New Year’s.”

“So, let’s go up and hurt some bad guys.”

This time, he puts his hand on my shoulder and turns me to look round the room.

“Wait. There’s more, sunshine. Do you see Aelita? No, you don’t. You know why? Because some hothead fucked her up and left her in an alley where the Kissi could find her, and they carried her on up the hill. That’s right. Aelita’s in Avila right now and they’re going to kill her in a few hours. So, pardon me if I don’t get all choked up about you and yours. I’ve got my own people to worry about.”

I nod, a little numb. I have absolutely no reason to feel bad about what happens to someone who’s tried to kill me twice. But I don’t like the idea of throwing anyone, even a crazy, homicidal angel, to Mason. Besides, anything Mason wants, I don’t want him to have.

“Okay, Tex. You wanted me, you got me. And before you call me an asshole and tell me to get out, listen: I can give you something that no one else in the world can.”

“What?”

“I can walk you and your troops straight inside Avila. Past security and alarms, magicians, and whatever goblins or devil dogs they’ve hired as lookouts.”

Wells looks at me. I can practically see the hamster wheel turning in his head. He so wants to tell me to get out, but he’s read my file and knows that I’ve gotten to some of the best-protected Hellions Downtown. It’s fun watching a cop squirm.

“You’ll use the key? How? I need to know that my people will be safe.”

“I’ll walk them straight in. If there’s a shadow anywhere, I can get in through it.”

“Show me.”

“I’m not going to do magic tricks for you. Do you want my help or not?”

He stares at me. Chews the inside of his cheek. He wants a cigarette. He’s a secret smoker. I can smell it in his sweat.

“Know what, Tex? I don’t need you giving me the pig eye. You need me a lot more than I need you. I can wait until you and the cavalry charge in through the front door and get blown to rags. I’ll stroll in after and use your corpses for shields. Have fun getting slaughtered.”

“Okay,” he says. “This one time.”

“One more thing. We have different agendas. I’ll get you in, and if I can, I’ll step up and help you save the world and all that Boy Scout crap, but not until I get my friends out of harm’s way. Deal?”

“The world could end tonight and you’re determined to go out a selfish bastard.”

“Being up close to you godly types just brings it out in me.”

“We have a deal.”

I can tell that it’s killing him to say it. This is better than ice cream and cake for dinner.

Wells says, “But when this is over, you have to have a face-to-face with Aelita over what you did.”

“I’ll be there. When do we leave?”

Wells checks his watch. Looks up at a big digital countdown clock on the wall. Preparations are picking up in pace. The animals are getting worked up. Attack dogs doing lines of crystal meth, hoping that if they do enough, their teeth will turn to razor blades.

“We figure the last important guests will be there by ten, so we’ll go in a little after.”

“I’ll be back before then.”

I start out the way we came in, but I get stopped by a beautiful sight. A heavy metal clothes rack on wheels with a row of brand-new, state-of-the-art body-armor vests. At least fifty of them. I take one off the rack and hold it up.

I yell back at Wells, “I’m taking this.”

“Fine. Go.” Then, “Wait. One thing.”

“What?”

“Stop calling me Tex. I’m from Sparks, Nevada.”

“You know the only thing worse than a Texan?”

“What?”

“A pretend Texan.”

“Be back before ten or we go without you.”