Текст книги "Aloha from Hell"

Автор книги: Richard Kadrey

Соавторы: Richard Kadrey,Richard Kadrey,Richard Kadrey
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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

If I ever get out of here, I’m going to find whichever angel invented sand and make it eat this fucking desert while getting a Tabasco enema.

I reach up and get a handful of air. I’m at the top of the dune. I was right. The road is gone. But it doesn’t matter.

Holy shit.

I think I just found the Garden of Eden. There’s probably a soda machine and I left all my cash in L.A.

I stumble down the side of the he side ofmonster dune toward the acres of cool green grass and sparkling waterfalls.

The gates in front are dazzling in the desert sun. I don’t know what they’re made of, but they shine brighter than anything I’ve ever seen on earth, but the reflection doesn’t hurt my eyes. It’s like the gates have an internal glow that evens out the sun. Even the chains holding them shut are glowing.

There’s a lone angel to one side of the gate. He’s like one of those Buckingham Palace guards. He stands like an idiot statue staring straight ahead at attention, like a filthy, sweating madman didn’t just stumble in off the Mojave. I wonder how long he’s been there. I put my coat back on to cover up some of the dirt and walk over to him.

“My GPS is out, but the AAA guide said there was a Denny’s around here. Is this it?”

The angel doesn’t move. I get in front of him and stick my face right into his. Close enough that our noses touch. Nothing. If I wasn’t trying to stop the destruction of the universe, I could waste some time giving this guy a hotfoot or starting a tickle contest, but duty and getting out of this sun calls.

Mom always told me that God helps those who help themselves, so I head for the gates. I grab hold of the chains holding them closed and take out the black blade. Before I can swing it, the angel turns into a speeding blur and slams his shoulder into me like a supersonic linebacker. I go flying back to the dune.

He looks a little surprised when I get to my feet, but manages to stay in character, spreading his wings and pointing at me in that superior my-shit-smells-like-blueberry-muffins way angels have. His armor glows with the same light as the gates. His voice is low, louder than the cop bullhorn, and echoing. I wonder if heaven issues every angel its own reverb unit.

“Halt. Your kind may not enter the Malchut of Atzilut.”

I walk back to him, brushing the sand off my coat.

“Did I get turned around? The sign said this was the way to Epcot.”

The angel drops his hands to his side. He’s a head taller than me with Josef’s chiseled übermensch cheekbones, only his hair is jet black.

“If you mean the road to Gan Eden, then yes. But you are not permitted to enter the place that God gave to man and was lost to him. This is a holy place and only the righteous shall pass through the gate.”

I get out a Malediction and light up.

“Here’s the situation. I was dead a few minutes ago and woke up a little way over those dunes. That tells me that this is where I’m supposed to be. I’m not looking to hang around and track dust all over your daffodils. All I want to know is if there’s a freight elevator or a crawl space or something? I’m trying to get to Hell.ȁ wa Hell.&D;

He gives me his stern face, all steely eyes and smoldering passion. He could get a job as a romance-novel cover model.

“Once, only Heaven was here, but the sin of man befouled it.”

“So I can get to Hell through there?”

“Yes. The serpent brought the seeds of Hell into this place, man tended it, and here it stays like a festering wound.”

“Would you mind pointing out the scar tissue? I need to get going.”

“What matter is Eden to you? No mortal man or woman may enter.”

“How many mortal men do you get around here? Do you rent the place out for pool parties during spring break?”

The angel doesn’t say anything and his smoldering act is starting to get old. I blow smoke in his face.

“Listen up, Hawkman, I’m going in there even if I have to pluck off all your feathers and stuff you like a teddy bear.”

The angel waves the smoke away. He stretches and rubs the back of his neck. His voice rises to a normal octave and doesn’t echo anymore.

“Listen, man. It’s the end of my shift. I’m really tired and the sun’s giving me a migraine. I can’t let you in, but I don’t want to get into a whole thing about it with you. Can you just hang around and work this out with my replacement?”

“I’m in kind of a hurry.”

“He’ll be here tonight. Tomorrow at the latest.”

“I really can’t wait.”

He sighs.

“Yeah. I figured.”

He manifests his Gladius, his angelic sword of fire, and takes a swing at my head. The attack is slow. Completely for show. Why shouldn’t it be? He’s an angel and I’m just a lost spirit who wandered in from nowhere. I manifest my own Gladius, block his blow, and cut a nice diagonal slice through his chest plate. He falls back, eyes wide.

April Fool, motherfucker.

His Gladius is on the ground, but I’m mad. He made me drop one of my last cigarettes. I move in fast and get my sword under his chin.

“What’s your name?”

“Rizoel./diC;Rizoe201D;

“Well, Rizoel, you know that I could kill you entirely here and now, right? I know fallen angels go to Tartarus when they die, but I’m not clear on what happens to nice angels. Given my natural inclinations, I’d like to slice and dice you just to see where you end up. Lucky for you there’s a little angel that lives in my head and I know he won’t shut up about it if I turn you into chum. So to sum up, this is your lucky day. Understand?”

Rizoel gives me a mininod, making sure not to let the Gladius touch his chin.

“Here’s the deal. You can walk away but you have to do something for me. What do you think? You ready to come on down off your high-and-mighty for a second and make a deal?”

“I don’t seem to have a choice.”

“Sure you do. But one of them isn’t pretty.”

The angel nods.

“All right.”

I let my Gladius go out. The angel tries to stand, but he’s favoring the side where I slashed him. I take his other arm and help him up.

“You’re him, aren’t you?” he says. “The nephilim. The monster who kills monsters.”

“I’ll give you an autograph, but if it shows up on eBay, I’m going to be mad.”

“You are an Abomination and will not pass through these holy gates.”

I should have seen that coming. Never trust an angel.

We both fire up our Gladiuses and go at each other. Even hurt, the angel is inhumanly fast and strong, but so am I. He’s not going to fall for the same trick twice, so I stay in close to him. He can’t get a good swing at me, and with his injured arm he can’t push me back enough to put me in dissecting range. But he figures out what I’m doing and kicks my leg. When I stumble he gets an overhead shot at my back. I see it coming and turn my shoulders so he only gets a piece of me. Still, the blow burns like nothing I’ve ever felt before. It feels a lot like a magic flaming sword.

I snap my head up under his chin and knock him back. I swing at his shoulder, but the prick has been playing possum. He grabs my throat with what I thought was his injured arm, raises his sword with the other, and brings it down at my head. I kick out my feet and fall backward, pulling him down with me. As we fall I swing my sword up between us. The angel lands on top of me and my Gladius goes out.

He’s big, and with all that armor it feels like chorus line decided to do a show on my chest. It takes all of my strength to roll him off me. Once he starts moving, he goes easily. In fact he loses some weight in the process. His left urts. His arm falls off where I sliced through it in the fall.

I manifest my Gladius again and swipe it lightly across his face, giving him a scar like one of mine. He stays on his back, staring up at me. Angels don’t bleed, but something thick and clear is leaking out from where his arm used to be, closing the wound.

“You’re lucky. I want you to do my favor more than I want to kill you. This is your second chance to stay alive. No one gets a third.”

He closes his eyes for a second then turns his head to where his arm isn’t.

“I agree.”

“Swear, angel. Swear a holy oath you can’t break.”

He blinks twice. Stares into the sun. He’s thinking, Father why have you forsaken my ass? Because he can’t choose you over the other angels bootlicking hosannas. Or like the rest of us, you’re just another bug on his windshield.

“I swear and make a holy pledge as a servant of the Lord to abide by the bargain we make.”

I let the Gladius go out, grab his chest plate at the neck, and pull him up. Toss him back against Eden’s gates and get up close to his face so he won’t miss a word.

“Tell Lucifer I’m coming for him.”

Rizoel looks at me.

“Lucifer was his name in Perdition. In Heaven, he’s Samael.”

“Call him Travis Bickle for all I care, just tell him I’m coming. And I’m bringing all of Hell with me. Got it?”

“What kind of man are you that you’d wage war on Heaven?”

“It was this or stay home and watch The Wizard of Oz, and I hate musicals.”

I leave him where he is, flame on my Gladius, and slice through the chains on the gates. One kick and Eden is open for business.

Rizoel staggers back.

“I’m going to get written up for this, you know. It’ll go on my permanent record.”

“Shouldn’t you be on your way somewhere?”

Rizoel is horrified at seeing an Abomination in the garden. One step. Two steps. He doesn’t move. I think he was expecting me to turn into a pillar of salt. I turn, and when he doesn’t move, I drag my Gladius through the rosebushes. They burst into flame.

He takes a couple of steps back, shaking his head. “You are such an asshole.”

“Don’t forget our deal. By the way, how do I get to Hell in here?”

The look of disgust fades as his lips draw up into a big Cheshire-cat smile.

“It’s easy. Exactly the way the human part of you did it the first time.”

Before I get a word out, Rizoel spreads his wings and throws himself into the ridiculously bright blue sky.

I take a look around the garden. It’s just a fucking garden. Rizoel was too gleeful to just be mocking me. He was giving me a clue. Hell is in here somewhere.

I stroll around the garden like a tourist in the kind of flower prison that florists dream about. After a while all the plants look the same to me. Leaves. Got it. Stems and flowers. Got it. Bark and fruit. Got it. I’m Steve McQueen and the Blob is after me, only it’s made of dandelions and begonias.

Where is Hell in here? I stomp through the rosebushes and under pine trees. Climb up snaky vines and dig up screaming mandrakes. That was a bad idea. I thought they might be carrots. I’m getting hungry.

There’s nothing here. No doors. No rabbit holes. No hoodoo portals or sci-fi transporters. I’m stuck in a feed-store calendar and I’m getting just a little pissed off.

Fuck you, angel, and everyone who’s been spewing cryptic crap at me. The way you did the first time. “Be a rock.” “Click your heels three times and think of flying monkeys.” The next thing that quotes me a fortune cookie gets turned into a novelty paperweight.

Time is passing. Tick tock. Tick tock.

There’s nothing left to do. Hey, Heaven. I let your angel live, but you don’t understand the concept of cutting someone slack, huh? Fine by me. When this is over, just remember that you set the rules. Not me.

There’s only one thing to do with a garden if it won’t give you what you want. Get rid of it.

I drag the flaming Gladius along the ground as I stroll through the winding path that curves from the entrance through the orchards, the redwoods, the pines, the thorny jungle foliage, and the crayon-colored flower beds, cutting a flaming red scar behind me. God must have yanked all the animals out of here when he gave Adam and Eve the boot. Good. The life of one flea-bitten squirrel means more than one inch of this pussy-willow paradise.

Fuck this place and fuck your games. This is where you first failed us. You gave us minds and told us not to think. You gave us curiosity and put a booby-trapped tree right in front of us. You gave us sex and told us not to do it. You played three-c">

Whatever your reasons, you won’t have Paisley Park much longer. All you gave us here was daisies and fairy tales and you acted like that was enough. How were we supposed to resist evil when you didn’t even tell us about it? You wanted us innocent. But when Lucifer found a way around your rules and we weren’t innocent anymore, you blamed us and tossed us out into the wasteland like garbage.

You lounge upstairs on your golden throne like you’re the greatest thing since “Johnny Be Good,” but to me you’re just another deadbeat dad.

I hope you can smell Eden burning. I hope you choke on it.

Alice wasn’t a spy. She wasn’t part of the big lie. She was real and she was mine.

Eden is an inferno. Some of it went up so fast the foliage is already gone. I kick through the cinders, looking for a way Downtown, but I don’t find anything. Stay calm. This is important. It’s worth waiting for.

I follow the course of the fire as it eats up the plants. I kick through the dirt behind every burned hedge and blackened bush. I don’t find anything. There’s nothing here.

I go to the big tree at the center of the garden. The one that started all the trouble. It’s the only thing that hasn’t burned. I’ve been saving it for last. I reach up to the lowest branch and snap off an apple. Shine it against my coat and bite into it.

It’s good. It’s sweet and juicy, but it’s not worth losing paradise over. For that, you’d think the man upstairs would make the fruit taste like the greatest thing ever. Your tongue should have an orgasm and drunk-dial old girlfriends to tell them about it. Still, the juice is refreshing. It clears the smoke and sand from my throat. I toss the core into the fire and reach for another apple but can’t reach one. They’re all on the higher branches. I swing up the Gladius and slice off a limb. The wood collapses when I pull off the apple. I push at the cracked bark with the toe of my boot. The branch is hollow. I cut another branch. It’s hollow, too. I hack off more. They’re all the same. The branches are like props in a high school play. The tree is a fake.

I concentrate and it calms the angel in my head. He’s been quiet since we entered Eden, and now that he’s seen what I’ve seen, for once he’s on my side.

I swing up the Gladius, concentrating. It burns bigger and hotter than it’s ever burned. The tree trunk is big. I have to start the cut way back, like I’m batting in the World Series. I swing the blade and it goes through the tree like a bullet through a chocolate sundae. The tree creaks, cracks, and falls over.

I was right. Just like the branches, the tree is hollow. Inside, the two halves of the tree are different. Inside the top d side thehalf is a winding silver staircase that winds up to Heaven. In the stump is what looks like a grimy diamond-plate-metal staircase going into an industrial subbasement.

The angel told the truth. I get to Hell the way we did the first time. At the tree. You could have just said that, Tweety Bird. Then I wouldn’t have had to burn Dad’s prize marigolds. But I probably would have anyway.

I climb into the stump and walk down the rusty stairs.

IT ISN’T A long walk to Hell. Shorter than the walk to Eden. No surprise there.

The stairs lead to a long passage that looks like an abandoned maintenance tunnel. Someone needs to sweep up down here. Here and there whole sections of the ceiling have crashed onto the cement floor. I have to half walk, half hopscotch around it to keep from tripping. In the flickering fluorescent light, I swear some of the rusted rebar looks like bones.

After an hour of wandering I come to another set of metal stairs. It’s not the best feeling being this close to Hell again. But it’s what I signed up for. If Mason has a Hellion bike gang with chains and knuckle-dusters stationed at the top of these stairs, I’m going to be pissed. I could have stayed home and let Medea Bava kill me while eating hundred-dollar chicken and waffles with Candy.

There are double doors at the top of the stairs, the kind you see in front of old buildings for deliveries. I push with my arms, but can’t budge them. I go up a few more steps, brace my back against the doors, and push.

The doors feel hot against my back. I can’t tell if it’s the metal or if I still hurt from where Rizoel tagged me. I ignore the pain and keep pushing. Nothing seems to be happening, but then light shines down through a space between the doors. I bend my knees and spring straight up, knocking both doors open.

And I’m instantly on fire. I roll off the pile of burning trash and keep rolling until all the flames are out. I get to my feet and look around.

Fuck me.

I’m back in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery and it’s on fire. All of L.A. is on fire.

EVERYTHING IS WRONG. This is exactly where I was when I crawled out of Hell eight months ago. Now I’m back. Only I’m not. Everything is wrong, from the smells to the sounds to the light.

The cemetery looks like it was worked over by drunk bikers with garbage trucks for feet. Tombstones are knocked over or snapped in two. A lot of them are just dust. Some of the graves are open and spouting fountains of blue flames, like a gas line exploded beneath them. Clothes are strewn across the blackened lawn from bodies nearby that were blown out of the ground when the line broke.

I walk to the cemetery gates but don’t step outside. The last time I walked out of he bued out re, a Beverly Hills crackhead tried to mug me. I mugged him instead. It was quite a welcome-home party. This time I stay put and take in the situation from my own comfy Sheol.

To my right I can see the giant Hollywood sign hanging over everything like a promise to a dead man. The hills and the tops of all the buildings are on fire. Someone must have thrown some hoodoo on the Hollywood sign. It isn’t catching, but the hills behind it are glowing orange ash.

The fires haven’t reached this neighborhood yet, but they’re on the move. From here it looks like the whole horizon is burning. The sky Downtown used to be all bruised purples and bloody reds. A mean perpetual twilight. Now it’s a solid mass of roiling black smoke. Lit from below, it looks like the belly of a black snake the size of the sky crawling over us.

So, where the hell am I? I was pretty crazy the last time I crawled out here. Wasn’t even looking for home this time, but I got it anyway. And it looks like someone broke it when I had my back turned.

How long was I unconscious after the Black Dahlia? Am I Rip van Winkle? Was I semidead for so long that Mason won and the universe thought it would be a hoot to wake me up just in time for the Apocalypse?

I get a fistful of graveyard dirt and scribble runes on my forehead while growling Hellion hoodoo. A death glamour. With any luck, no one will notice that I’m alive. I drop my coat on the ground and grab a corpse’s hoodie dangling from a statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe. I put on the hoodie and the coat over it. I do a last quick check outside the gates for muggers. Satisfied the street’s clear, I pull up the hood, covering as much of my face as I can, and head toward the big cookout.

A CRACK RUNS up Gower Street starting at the cemetery. A deep slash, as ragged as a lightning bolt and wide as a bus. What looks like a pool of bright red blood bubbles at the bottom. It smells like sewage but worse. Rotten eggs and dead fish.

I keep moving north, skirting a sinkhole at Fountain Avenue. Hellion bodies bloat at the bottom. Broken clockwork hellhounds writhe and twitch, leaking spinal fluid. I kick in a few pebbles. Watch them sink into the cherry muck.

Trees have collapsed on roofs and cars, like the ground simply couldn’t support them anymore. Cracks have ripped homes in half. A deep geologic rumble shakes the ground under my feet and the two broken halves of Gower move a few inches in different directions. Fuck me. These aren’t cracks. They’re fault lines. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate everything?

On the side streets some of the new faults must have been exposed for a while because locals have strung them together with half-assed rope and plank and bridges. Idiot militias toss rocks and spears across the chasms, fighting to see who gets to take the crossing tolls.

Sunset Boulevard looks like it was blowtorched from below. As far as I can see everything is gutted, fried, or melted in both directions. The only things still standing are the palm trees. They burn like votive candles in 00" candlea dark nave, throwing more shadows than light. Smoldering fronds fall like burning snow.

THERE’S A RIOT on Hollywood Boulevard.

When I crawled out of Hell eight months ago, I’d been surprised at how the boulevard had become a monochrome wilderness. The street was dead quiet, like someone had dropped a blanket over it. All empty-eyed street kids and vacant storefronts. There’d been plenty of traffic, but even the cars sounded like they were running on cotton candy instead of gas. Something had sucked the life out of the place. Maybe the Kissi. I still don’t know. This version of Hollywood Boulevard is livelier, but I’m already longing for the muffled gray-and-white version.

The mob is a punch-drunk mix of Hellions and damned souls. This isn’t fun, let’s-turn-the-Dumpster-over rioting. It’s the kind where you go at each other with knives and pipes, fighting over food and water and drugs.

I’ve only walked a quarter mile from the cemetery and I can already tell that the place is as bad off as Kasabian said. Lucifer would never let this happen. If Mason had any goddamn sense, he wouldn’t either. When you’re riding herd on a kingdom of killer Hellions, the first thing you do is make sure they’re well fed and at least half hammered most of the time. The way this bunch is tearing up butcher shops and stores, they’re neither. (Yes, Hell has stores and bars. It might be Hell, but it’s better than a dry county in Mississippi.) And who let all the damned souls run wild? I saw some crazy shit when I was trapped Downtown, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen a soul in Pandemonium that wasn’t tortured, locked up, or on a leash. If this really is Pandemonium. If it’s not, where the fuck am I?

A couple of hundred Hellion gendarmes take positions at opposite ends of the street, surrounding the crowd. Hell is all about power games and influence. Lucifer didn’t like too much power concentrated in anyone’s hands, so Pandemonium has two police forces with overlapping territories. And they hate each other. Instead of slowing the riot, the cop gangs smash into it like two hundred icebreakers. With their riot guns and heavy body armor, they rip through the crowd to claim as much of the swag as they can for their side.

I don’t stick around to see which side wins because I couldn’t possibly give less of a fuck. I hope they slaughter each other fast and get out of my way.

I hunch my shoulders, tug the hood, and head back to Gower. Maybe if I grabbed a cop, I could twist him around in interesting ways until he told me where Eleusis is, but seeing as how there are two hundred of them, that’ll have to wait for later. What I want now is to cut back to Sunset and do an end run around this particular shit storm. If this is really a fucked-up version of L.A., then Max Overdrive isn’t far from here. I can hole up until the riot blows over and figure out a next move.

“Where you going?”

A hand shoots out from the alcove of an out-of-business sex-toy shop and latches onto my arm. The Hellion the hand is iotthe hanattached to is dressed in layers of ragged coats, tunics, and greasy shirts. A Hellspawn hobo.

I don’t say anything. I stare and hope the death glamour holds.

The bum says, “Got anything from the shops you want to share?”

“Nothing for you, rummy.”

He grins and licks his lips, showing off a jumble of craggy gray teeth, like someone hammered broken cement into his gums. Maybe that’s how God keeps Heaven’s other angels in line. A better dental plan.

“Got a smoke?” he asks.

Something squirms under his grimy face. It looks like my glamour isn’t the problem. It’s his. Too bad I’m so slow on the uptake. By the time I recognize what he is, he has something very pointy and very sharp against my throat. It’s double-pronged. Probably what on earth they’d call a Heretic’s Fork. This fucker isn’t a regular Hellion. He’s a Malebranche, one of thirteen horned bastards that Lucifer kept as his private gestapo and interrogation squad. Even other Hellions hate the Malebranche. My back still hurts from Rizoel’s sword. The last thing I want is to go one-on-one with a professional flesh ripper.

I say, “Looks like you’ve hit hard times.”

“You’ve hit worse unless you have something I want.”

The riot seethes along in its merry way behind us, but the Malebranche and me are in our own cozy little world in the alcove. A bottle breaks above us and we both reflexively turn our heads to avoid the flying glass, but it was random. Even though no one is paying any attention to us, I keep getting hit from behind, which pushes my throat down onto the fork. I hope not enough to break the skin. Human blood would be a dead giveaway.

I look at the Malebranche’s dirty face. His skin is bright red under the grime.

“Which one are you? Rubicante?”

His laugh is high and a little frantic.

“Oh my. Am I still that famous?”

“It’s your pretty face,” I say. “Maybe I have something for you after all.”

I reach into my pocket, feeling Rubicante push the sharp prongs harder against my neck.

“Easy, friend. I wouldn’t want to slip.”

He gives a quick flick of his head at my hand.

“Bring that hand out slowly and bring out something tasty with it or I’ll have to pop outcole to po one of your eyes for a snack.”

The alcove is a dim place and the riot is reflected clearly in the glass behind Rubicante’s head. I feel around in my pocket for a minute, trying to buy some time.

“Any day now, friend,” he says.

I have to do this just right. Or completely wrong. That sometimes works.

I come out with the half pack of Maledictions and Rubicante’s eyes go wide. I hold them out and he takes his eyes off me. I drop the pack and he watches it fall all the way to the ground. I glance at the reflection in the glass door and throw myself out of the way.

A riot cop tossed from the crowd smashes into the Malebranche and they go flying through the shop’s glass door.

I leave Rubicante and the cop playing Twister in the sex shop, grab the Maledictions, and run for Sunset.

It feels like the fall reopened the wound on my back. I don’t want to smell even vaguely alive, so I whisper a little hoodoo and crank up the fumes from my corpse hoodie until I stink like the Dumpster behind a used-ass store. This is going to be a pleasant way to travel.

I’m going to have a hell of a time finding Eleusis if the whole place is as twisted as it was back then. Not that that matters if I’ve been napping for twenty years, Mason has already won, and this really is L.A.

Sunset is as scorched and sterile as a nuke test site. Some of the burning palm fronds fall and others float over the buildings, carried away by weird convection currents.

I stand on the corner and let the angel out of the attic long enough to expand my senses and do a kind of quick minesweep to see if there’s anything alive or lurking in the burned-out buildings. Sunset is dazzling through the angel’s eyes. The smoldering street with its torched trees is like a line of suns down a glory road of trembling atoms and subatomic particles.

The first time I saw Hell, it was a very different story. I was dragged down through Mason’s floor and landed in a naked heap on a main street in Pandemonium. I must have been out cold for a while, and when I came to, the first thing that hit me was the stink. Nothing human smelled like that. It wasn’t just waste. It was filth that had been packed, compressed, and locked away for a million years. Hell is the bottom of the universe and Heaven isn’t going to let Lucifer pollute the rest of existence with Hellion shit and candy wrappers. So they still bury it in the deep, deeper, deepest caverns in their craptacular kingdom, where it sits, cooks, and festers in its own juices until the end of time.

The angel gives the all clear. I shove it out of the way, but I don’t lock it up. Unfortunately, I’m going to need all of me to get through this, and that includes my divine squatter.

I head west down Sunset so I can cut up Las Palmas to Max Overdrive. The strrdrive.angel better be right that it’s clear down here. I’m not above self-trepanation.

I can still see the Hollywood Boulevard riot when I cross Vine Street. And Cahuenga.

Getting down Sunset is harder than the road by the cemetery. The fault lines are wider and the broken pavement is pushed up higher and at steeper angles. Sinkholes have opened around whole blocks, forming skyscraper islands with sewage moats. Maybe that’s why everything feels so wrong. I’ve only gone a couple of blocks but I swear it feels like I’ve been walking for-fucking-ever. Who or whatever built this L.A. got the proportions all wrong. The buildings are right, but some of them are in the wrong place. The Cinerama Dome still looks like a giant golf ball dropped to the earth by aliens, but it’s on the wrong side of the street. Some of the side streets that used to cut across Sunset have twisted around like asphalt taffy and now run parallel.

That is not good news. It means that even if someone tells me where Eleusis is, I might not be able to find it in these deranged goddamn streets. And I can’t even use maps. Lucifer was such a control freak that most of the maps you find Downtown are wrong. He didn’t want the riffraff knowing exactly which roads led where or which were wide enough to hold rebel troops. That means I’m going to need a tracker who can walk and take me to the doorstep of Alice’s asylum.

A hell of a quake must have hit the concrete island ahead of me. An entire block of gleaming new office buildings has fallen in on itself and half disappeared down a massive sinkhole. The acres of broken glass and steel reflect the burning street like the last ice floe at the end of the world.