Текст книги "Aloha from Hell"

Автор книги: Richard Kadrey

Соавторы: Richard Kadrey,Richard Kadrey,Richard Kadrey
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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

“I met his mom once. A dumpy lady with the Bettie Page hair and trophy-wife jewelry. She’s famous?”

“That was his aunt. His parents were dead and regular civilian court appointed an uncle and auntie dearest to take care of him. They were happy to move into the house in Beverly Hills and spend as much of Mason’s inheritance as they could. Maybe that’s why he burned the house when he disappeared. It covered up what he did to you and it sent the Beverly Hillbillies packing.”

“Tell me about Mason’s metaphorical Hell.”

Mason grunts. He’s calling me a hick without actually saying it out loud.

“It started with Mason’s father, old Ammit Faim. Ammit killed and hexed his way into running a big chunk of the California drug biz, and I don’t mean aspirin. Why would he cozy up to civilian dope peddlers? Because drugs are power and influence, and Ammit and Gabriella, Mason’s mom, were the ambitious type.”

He swigs from his beer.

“You know what assholes rich Sub Rosas are. Everything is about status and building a dynasty. None of the other clans were into the drug biz, so there wasn’t any competition. He imported the stuff. Set up operations to manufacture the complicated stuff and then cut and distributed it himself. He had a handle on Sub Rosa recreational drugs and most of the pot, meth, and Ecstasy in the state, but he didn’t control heroin and opium. So he decided to go to the source. Ammit and Gabriella packed up the kiddies, that’s Mason and his little sister—bet you didn’t even know he had a sister—and off the family went to Burma.”

“The drug connection has to be why Mason and Aelita dosed Hunter. Another joke or clue for me to figure out.”

“Shut up,” Kasabian says. “Ammit had enough connections to get a meeting with an opium general up north. He was an army officer who’d defected and took a lot of his troops with him. Formed his own private army and marched into the Golden Triangle. They paid the local farmers to raise poppies for them. The farmers didn’t care. Crops are crops and they made more money than growing rice.

“As w0">mmit and the general cut a deal for his product and for a while everything was champagne and Hot Pockets. Mason’s father had a good source of dope and Mom kept the books. The general had a real businessman selling his stuff and the money rolled in. The Faims’ power grew and so did the family’s status. Then it got ugly.

“The reason the general and his men had originally gone into the hills was to hunt down guerrilla armies in the mountains. The Faims were in the hills visiting their dope crop when the rebels attacked.

“The general and his men were pros, but a bunch of guerrilla groups got together and all attacked at the same time. There were so damn many of them, they wiped out the general’s army.

“These rebels were some mean Khmer Rouge–type pricks. Once the fighting was over, one by one the guerrillas cut off the heads of all the general’s men. Eventually someone found Mason and the kiddies. Normally Ammit could have magicked the family out of there, but the general had local witches lay down all kinds of antihoodoo spells around their camp.

“It must have been a pretty good shock for those Burmese grunts to find a whole Leave It to Beaver family up in the mountains. Normally in a situation like that, the local army will ransom off Americans for cash. But not the rebel general. He took one look at these wealthy white foreigners financing his enemy and he started to kill them on the spot. But an old shaman stopped him. The guerrillas might have been fighting about politics and money, but they brought their old tribal magic and religion with them. Supposedly the old man made a beeline for Mason and took him aside. He pawed at the scared kid, checking him out, and the shaman saw something special in Mason. After the shaman and the general talked, the old man took Mason while soldiers hacked his whole family to death with machetes.

“The Faims weren’t slackers when it came to magic, but the witches’ spells worked and they couldn’t fight back.

“When the shaman was done blasting their asses around the camp, the soldiers had fun hacking them to pieces. They killed Mason’s little sister last. The Burmese have these big dogs up in the mountains and the rebels use them as war dogs. Mason got to watch as the general let his dogs loose on the big pile of hamburger that used to be his family.”

“I don’t believe a word of this.”

“You’ll like this part. It gets weirder,” says Kasabian. “People eventually found out about the dead white people in the hills, but not about the little boy. Mason is gone. Off the radar for two or three years. UN workers found him when a local militia shot up one of the rebel groups.

“Mason got passed down the food chain to the U.S. embassy. Imagine what that was like for a kid. In just a few days he goes from eating bugs and learning ancient fucked-up tribal magic all the way back to L.A.

“That’s when the aunt and uncle show up. Ammit had put together a tidy little nest egg from his drug busiounis drugness, and with Mason only being around ten at the time, the court set him up with a brand-new family.”

“Why didn’t anyone tell me any of this?”

“Because you’re an asshole and you never wanted to know. Listen. The best part is coming.

“Mason settles into the whole home-sweet-home thing. He goes to private Sub Rosa school. He has money. He has nice clothes. But no friends. Nothing. He didn’t talk to anyone, especially his new family. At school, he gets the same kind of generic magic training we all got. Only Mason is like you. Kind of a freak. He showed them the shaman’s stuff. Dark magic they’d never seen before. They graduated him early just to get him out of there.

“After graduation he disappears again. He was gone for three months, and when he came home he wouldn’t tell anyone if he’d been kidnapped or ran away or anything. But no one cares because all of a sudden he’s acting like a normal kid. They let him back into upper grade school. He made friends and generally acted the way any idiot schoolkid was supposed to act.

“A few months later stories started popping up on TV about arms smuggling along the Burmese border and how there must have been a bad accident. Like a big ammo dump or even a small tactical Chinese nuke had gone off. The land in one area was fried. And part of a mountain was gone, like it was scooped out with an ice-cream scoop. The funny thing was no one saw or heard any explosions. It all got hushed up pretty quick by the local government because whatever happened had wiped out an entire rebel army along with their village, their families, their crops, and their animals. There was nothing but ashes for miles.”

Kasabian finishes the beer and tosses the empty into an overflowing trash can.

“Mason went to Hell all right, but he got his revenge. That’s why I’m sure what Mason wants is to be in charge. This time around he’s not going to be dragged into the jungle while his family is chopped into dog food. He’s going to be the dragger, not the draggee.”

What do you know? Mason isn’t Dr. Doom after all. He’s Bruce Wayne, pining away for his long-gone Partridge Family lifestyle. I have no way of knowing if everything in Kasabian’s tall tale is true, but he got at least one thing right. From the moment we met, I don’t think it ever occurred to Mason and me to do anything but go at each other. It’s not that we hated each other. It’s more like how some people can’t help but bring out the not necessarily righteous parts of your personality. Like how you meet someone and instantly know they’re a full-time professional victim, and no matter how hard you try, something takes over and you can’t help needling them. From day one Mason and I were playing King of the Hill. It all makes a sad kind of sense now. Sending me Downtown wasn’t just Mason’s play for power. It was his way of finally winning the stupid game we’d been playing since we met. Kasabian nailed it. Mason and I aren’t anything special. Just a couple of angry toddlers out to crack the world over a playground punch-out.

“You okay?”

I look around. Kasabian looks concerned. Somewhere along the way I’d gotten to my feet. I guess I’ve been standing here for a while.

“I’m fine. Thanks for laying it all out for me. At least now I know why Lucifer thought Mason was the only other candidate to take his place.”

“Maybe you ought to sit down and finish your drink.”

“Good idea.”

I’m feeling a little dazed. A little high. Mason and I are connected at the hip and the brain stem. Isn’t that goddamn hilarious?

“Just be cool. You wanted to hear the story. Don’t go getting mad at me.”

“Don’t sweat it. I’m glad I know.”

I pick up my coat. Finger the bullet hole. It’s not bad enough to throw the coat away. Besides, I heard that blood is the new black.

My cigarette has gone out. I drop it in a half-finished drink by the bed and light another.

“I get it now. Why Mason wants Heaven and Hell.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s going to do it again. He doesn’t want to be God. He wants to burn us like he burned that mountain.”

“Why would he do that?”

I look at Kasabian. He’s as mad as any human or Hellion I’ve ever met. Why can’t he see it? It’s because he’s a lousy magician. Third rate when he gets a good tailwind. He never learned to dream big.

“Because the universe abandoned him. Mason was scared. He’d seen his family butchered. He needed help. He begged and groveled and prayed, but nobody came. Not his parents. Not the Sub Rosa. Not the army. Not God or Lucifer or one lousy angel. The little boy got tossed out like the trash and now he’s going to burn the universe because when he was lost and pathetic and needed help the universe turned its back and took a planet-size dump on his head.”

“How do you know this sick shit?”

“Because it’s exactly what I was going to do. When I got back from Hell, I traded Mr. Muninn for something I have hidden in the Room of Thirteen Doors. Something that can fry every atom in Creation. Turn this whole peep show to dust. I thought that killing the Circle and sending Mason to Hell was going to fix me and the world would be full of sunshine and pretty girls and bluebirds that shit cold beer. But it didn’t. Alice was still dead. God and bead. GodLucifer still gave me the silent treatment. And Wells, Aelita, the Golden Vigil, and everyone who worked for them still walked the streets.”

I open my left hand. It hurts from being balled tight into a fist.

“So what changed your mind?” Kasabian asks. “From where I sit, the world is exactly as shitty as it was when you left.”

“It was that night I killed the Drifters. It would have been so easy to sit down and have a cigarette and let them eat the city. But when it came right down to it, I didn’t want to. It’s as simple as that. I wanted to live and I wanted Vidocq and Candy, Allegra, and Brigitte to live. And if I murdered the world, I’d be Mason and I didn’t want to be him.”

“You’re quite the humanitarian. By the way, thanks a fuck of a lot for leaving me off your who-to-save list.”

“You’re on it, Alfredo Garcia. I just didn’t want to say it out loud and have you call me Nancy or Tinker Bell.”

“Yeah, I would have done that.”

“Behave yourself, and when I’m Downtown maybe I can find some Hellion alchemists who can stitch you onto a new body. You can have Mason’s after I kill him.”

Kasabian snorts.

“Yeah. That’s what I want. Every time I pee I can look down and see Mason’s dick in my hand. That won’t give me nightmares.”

“But think how upset the dick’s going to be when it looks up and sees you.”

IN THE MORNING Candy, Vidocq, and I head back to Studio City in Allegra’s car. Vidocq borrowed it. He’s on a kick about not riding in stolen vehicles all the time. For a people who invented absinthe and blow jobs, sometimes the French can be a drag.

After hearing Kasabian’s story last night, I was itchy to talk to the Sentenzas and didn’t want to wait until the A.M., but they have a skull-fucked-by-evil kid wandering the streets and I didn’t want to have to haul them to an emergency room with matching coronaries.

Candy is a lot more of a morning person than I am, which is easy since I refuse to believe in the existence of a 10 A.M. But she’s insistent enough and strong enough to drag my ass out of bed and pour me into some clothes. She even found a coffeemaker in the kitchenette that wasn’t broken. Coffee isn’t the perfect morning drug, but it’ll do until someone invents French Roast adrenochrome.

What’s pissing me off is that I’m going to have to dance around a lot of what I’ve learned about Hunter and his pals. K.W. and Jen aren’t goinHe&x2019;tg to want to hear how close Hunter was to some really nasty drug peddlers. And I’m sure as hell not going to tell them about Aelita. I still don’t know why she’d go after TJ’s brother. It’s not like driving the kid crazy threatens anyone I care about. Me included. I could walk away from this anytime and it wouldn’t change a damn thing in my life.

We get to the Sentenzas’ place around eleven. Their car and truck are both in the driveway. Nothing surprising there. K.W. seems like a real worker bee, but a missing kid will dull your work ethic. The three of us go up the stone walkway and I ring the bell.

A minute or so later Jen opens the door. She’s in a red silk robe. Her hair is a mess and her eyes are red. She’s been crying and it looks like she just got up. She doesn’t say anything. She just stands aside and lets us in.

“This isn’t good news, is it?” she asks.

“Why do you say that?”

“Hunter isn’t with you and you don’t look much better than I feel.”

K.W. comes down the stairs. He’s in a blue tracksuit. It looks like he slept in it.

“Have you found him?”

“I’m afraid not,” says Vidocq. Bad news sounds better with his accent. “But we know a lot more than we did when we left here yesterday.”

I say, “What happened to Hunter wasn’t his fault. It was done to him. That might sound bad, but it’s actually good news. If he was set up for the possession, it means someone wanted to make a point, one that hasn’t been made yet. That means whoever did it still needs him. Wherever Hunter is, I’m sure that he’s still alive.”

Their bodies change when they hear that. I can feel their nervous systems unknot. Their breathing and heart rates get somewhere in the neighborhood of normal. K.W. even manages a minuscule smile.

“That’s great news. So, why are you here? Do you need something else from us?”

Jen breaks in.

“Who would do something like that to Hunter?”

No way I’m answering that.

“We’re not sure,” says Candy. “That’s why we’re here. We need to ask you a few more questions.”

“I’ll put on some coffee,” says Jen, and heads for the kitchen. K.W. nods in her direction and we follow.

The kitchen is big and spacious. Spanish tile and copper pans. It&ir er pans#x2019;s flooded with light from a row of French doors that open onto a huge backyard with neat trees and a pool. We sit on stools at a serving island in the middle of the room. I doubt I could even afford the coffee filters Jen is fitting into an expensive German contraption. It looks more like something that fell out of the space station than a coffeemaker.

“What do you need to know?” asks K.W.

I figured out one thing last night. If Mason and Aelita are mixed up in this thing, then not only do they want the kid found, but they want me to find him. That means there’s information I don’t have yet. Since I don’t know where to look, there’s nothing to do but go back to the beginning.

“Was Hunter in touch with any of TJ’s friends who were into magic?”

Vidocq and Candy look at me.

Okay, I’m starting somewhere a little self-serving. I want to know if the Sentenzas know that TJ and I are connected. And it’s a legit question. TJ might have known some Sub Rosas outside our Circle. I doubt it, but you never know. Like I said, I’m grasping at straws and crabgrass.

“Not that I know of,” says K.W. “Jen, do you know anything?”

She stands where she is by the coffeemaker. She’s a long way down the counter from us, like she’s afraid of catching a flesh-eating virus.

Jen shakes her head.

“Not that I know of. If he knew any of them, he was keeping it a secret.”

“Was it his habit to keep secrets?” asks Vidocq.

“No. That was more TJ. Hunter is a good kid,” says K.W.

“He was on the debate team at school one semester,” says Jen, like it’s proof that Hunter is an angel and that none of this is happening. “But he had to quit to go out for track.”

I ask, “Did he do all right in school? No changes in his grades?”

“He was a hard worker,” says Jen.

K.W. smiles ruefully and nods.

“He did all his homework and his grades were decent, but there wasn’t much danger of him becoming a Rhodes scholar.”

While the coffee burbles away Jen starts getting cups down from the cupboard. She puts one down and stops. Her body has gone rigid again. Her heart rate is climbing fast. She’s trying not to cry. Probably doesn’t want to look weak in front of a bunch of strangers talking about her missing son like he’s a stolen dirt bike. K.W. gets up and wa"0"ts up alks over to her, puts his hands on her shoulders.

“Why don’t you go sit down? I’ll get the coffee,” he says.

She doesn’t reply, but comes over and sits on the stool K.W. just vacated. Her arms are crossed and she’s looking down at the counter.

Candy reaches out and touches Jen’s hand lightly.

“We’re very sorry to have to ask you all these questions.”

Jen nods, still staring down.

This is bullshit. The kid was a jock with ambitious parents. They’d lost their smart son, TJ, and hoped that Hunter would take his place. But Hunter isn’t TJ. If he joined the debate team, it was only to make his parents happy, and when he wanted off, he found a good enough reason that they couldn’t get mad.

K.W. puts down cups for everyone. I sip mine.

“This coffee is good,” I say to no one in particular.

K.W. nods.

“Yeah. It cost enough.”

“You have a coffeemaker this good at work?”

“That’s a funny question.”

“It is, isn’t it? But do you have a good coffeemaker at work?”

He shakes his head, still looking puzzled.

“Not this good, but the one in the office is okay. Most of the guys I work with wouldn’t know good coffee from kerosene. They’re the types who put on a pot on Monday and are still drinking it on Friday.”

“What kind of guys are we talking about?”

“Construction mostly. I’m a property developer. Someone has a piece of land and wants something on it, they call me.”

Makes sense. I remember seeing mud and cement around the wheel wells on the pickup in the drive.

“I have my own company. Some days I wear suits and some I’m out on the sites making sure the floor tiles are going in the right way up.” He smiles like we’re supposed to laugh. It’s a joke he’s used on a lot of clients. Now it’s just a nervous tic.

“Depending on business, I’m either out in the field most of the time or back in the office having meetings.”

“Whaene>ȁt kind of real estate do you develop?”

“Whatever a client asks for. Shopping malls. Business parks. Apartment buildings. Whatever a client wants.”

“Is business good?” asks Vidocq.

K.W. shrugs.

“With development, it’s always feast or famine. No one wants anything new. All they want is new electrics or pipes in old structures. Then someone wants a new hundred-apartment complex up in two weeks. And there are ten other companies behind that one who want the same thing.”

“Was Hunter going to work for you when he finished school?”

“I don’t know. We talked about it.”

“Did he spend much time at the building sites?”

K.W. sips his coffee. Puts his hand on his wife’s hand. Squeezes. She squeezes back.

“Not particularly. He liked the big construction machines when he was little.”

Fucking fascinating. This family is in training for the Tedious Olympics.

“Are you developing anything new? Anything unusual?” asks Candy. Nice. She has good instincts for this Sherlock Holmes stuff. Me, I’m about ready to take her back to the hotel and break more furniture.

“What do you mean ‘unusual’?”

“You’re the builder,” I say. “We don’t know a dump truck from the Batmobile. You tell us.”

K.W.’s eyes unfocus. Make microscopic movements back and forth in their sockets. It’s an involuntary thing. The brain trying to access memories. If he was lying, his eyes would favor his left side, but they don’t.

K.W. shrugs.

“Nothing out of the ordinary. We’re finishing a housing development. Upgrading the fixtures in a strip mall. We’re about to break ground on an office park near the 405.”

“Okay, the jobs are boring. Are your clients? Any eccentrics? Odd requests? Anyone paying you in magic beans?”

He thinks again. His eyes stop and hold steady.

“There’s only one thing I can think of and it’s not really odd. It’s just not something that happens every day.”

“Tell us,” says Vidocq.

ight="0" width="12" align="left">“A client called for a fix-up on a business property. What was unusual was that I never met her or a rep in person. We did everything on the phone. It was like she was one person handling everything herself. That’s unusual in this business.”

“What was her name?” I ask.

He frowns.

“I can’t remember. My secretary would know.”

“What did she hire you to do?”

“She wanted us to renovate and restore an old commercial site in the Hollywood Hills. It was a big job, too. There was extensive fire damage, but she wanted us to fix it rather than tear it down. It was something historic. An old gentlemen’s club. That I remember. It’s not a phrase you hear too often these days.”

I put down my coffee and Vidocq picks up his. Candy and I look at each other.

“Did she tell you the name of the club?”

“Maybe. I don’t remember.”

“Was it Avila?”

K.W. smiles.

“Yes, that’s it. How did you know?”

The human brain is a very funny thing, and because of that, it can do very funny things to the human body. Take mine right now. My heartbeat just doubled. All my senses are cranked up to eleven. Even the angel in my head feels it. I hear Jen’s breathing change. She knows my question and K.W.’s answer are important. I smell K.W. starting to sweat. He gets it that something he’s said is connected to Hunter’s disappearance. Vidocq and Candy are plain excited and trying not to show it. I’m as excited as any of them, but I feel cold, too. Like someone cracked open my chest and dumped a bucket of ice inside. But I don’t show any of it. This is basic stuff. I could have had this information yesterday if I hadn’t let the TJ thing get to me. But I guess getting to me has been the idea all along.

“How did you know the club’s name?”

I sip my coffee. The room is practically vibrating from the tension. Candy is a furnace. She wants to run out and start gnawing on bad guys or the coyotes in the hills. Something.

“A lucky guess.”

“I’ll call the office and get you the woman’s number.”

I shake my head.

“Don’t bother. It’ll be turned off and she won’t use it again.”

Jen says, “You know who it is, don’t you?”

“No,” I say. It’s the truth. I don’t know. But yes, I know.

“I have an idea, but I don’t want us to start getting ahead of ourselves.”

The three of us get up and head for the door. The Sentenzas don’t show us out this time. They stay in their bright and familiar kitchen, huddled there like the house is the Titanic and the serving island is the last lifeboat afloat.

Jen calls after us.

“What can we do?”

“Stay by the phone,” I yell over my shoulder.

WHEN WE GET to Allegra’s car, I say, “I’m driving,” and Vidocq doesn’t argue.

We get in and I tell the other two, “Get out your cells. You’re going to make calls.”

I start the car and back out of the driveway. I’m driving slow. Concentrating. I know what to do and I want to get to doing it, but I need to set it up right.

We head for the Golden State Freeway, but it’s bumper-to-bumper, so I turn the car and we head to the city on surface streets.

I tell Candy, “Call Allegra. Tell her to clear out all the diaper-rash and splinter patients. We’re bringing in a special case.”

“You’re that sure Hunter is at Avila?” she asks.

“I’d bet the pope’s red shoes. Tell her to get out every piece of Kinski’s hoodoo medical gear she has. The demon’s been working over Hunter for days. He’s going to be in bad shape.”

I don’t have to tell Vidocq what to do.

“I’ll call Father Traven,” he says.

I nod.

“Tell him to get his picnic basket together and be ready. I don’t want to give whatever’s in Avila the chance to know we’re coming.”

I get out my phone and dial the number Vidocq gave me for Julia. She answers on the second ring.

“Stark? How are things going?”

“I’ve got good news and bad news.”

“What’s the good news?”

“I know where Hunter is. We’re on our way there right now.”

“What’s the bad?”

“Aelita is involved. It might be a trap and we all might die.”

“Do I need to tell you to be careful?”

“It’s always good to be reminded. I’ll call you when it’s over. If we’re dead, I’ll call collect.”

I DON’T KNOW what to expect when we pick up Traven. How much bread do you need to bum-rush a demon out of Ferris Bueller? A baguette? A dump-truck-ful of biscuits?

Traven is waiting on the curb when we get to his place. He’s all in black, with an old-fashioned high-collared coat that makes him look like Johnny Cash’s stunt double. He’s holding a battered canvas duffel bag. It’s big, but he hefts it easily. I guess not that much bread after all.

I hit the brakes at the corner and say, “Let Traven sit up front. I want to talk to him.”

Vidocq gets out of the car and takes Traven’s duffel. He slides into the back with Candy. Traven gets in the front. I’m moving before he has the door closed.

“I understand you’ve found the boy. How’s he holding up?”

I steer the car back toward the Hollywood Hills.

“We haven’t seen him, but I know where he is. It was a place called Avila. In your line of work, you wouldn’t have heard of it. They called it a gentlemen’s club. Basically it was a casino and whorehouse for a very select group of über-rich assholes.”

“Avila? After Saint Teresa of Avila?”

“Who’s that?”

“Saint Teresa experienced an intense encounter with an angel. She describes it in sublimely intimate terms. The angel stabs her in the heart with a spear and the pain she describes is intense, but also beautiful and all-consuming.”

“I didn’t know saints went all the way on a first date.”

He nods and purses his lips. He’s heard it all before.

“A lot of people choose to interpret her description of religious ecstasy in simple sexual terms.” He shakes his head. “Goddamn Freud.”

“At least the name makes sense now. You see, Avila was a huge secret. A real Skull and Bones kind of operation. If you were one of the handful of people in the know, one of the politically anointed or rich enough to use the same accountant as Jehovah, you got access to the club inside the club. You go to see what the club was really built for.”

“And what was that?”

“They didn’t keep human hookers in the inner sanctum. For the right price and a few blood oaths, you could fuck an angel.”

Traven turns and looks at me, his face a blank mask.

“I’m not joking,” I say. “No one knows who started the place or what kind of hoodoo they used to capture and keep them. L.A.’s a major power spot, so for all anyone knows, it might have been here in some form forever.”

“And you think that’s where the boy is being held?”

I nod.

“I knew the last angel that got dragged up there. Her name is Aelita. She ran the Golden Vigil. God’s Pinkertons on earth. Real turbocharged assholes.”

“Yes. I know about the Golden Vigil. You think this Aelita was taken there to become another prostitute?”

“No, she and the other angels were going to be sacrificed to open the gates of Hell. You see an old buddy of mine, Mason, has ambition the size of King Kong’s balls. He wants to knock off Lucifer and take over Hell. Then he wants to stick a fork in God and grab Heaven. He’s hard-core enough that he might be able to pull it off. You still with me, Father?”

Out of the corner of my eye I see Traven squinting. He doesn’t know what to believe. I guess it’s a lot to absorb when you’ve spent your life in church libraries, reading the books, learning the stories, and then finding out you have no idea how the universe really works. All these years he’s been thoroughly shielded from everything but writer’s cramp. Now he finds out that a real-life low-down biblical horror show was going on across town from where he brushed his teeth in holy water every night before bed. I can’t blame him if his mind is a little blown.

“You want a cigarette?”

“That’s would be nice,” he says.

I hand him Mason’s lighter and the pack of Maledictions from my pocket. Listen to him rustle the pack and spark the lighter. He coughs at the first puff but keeps smoking. Maledictions are easier to take when you’re doomed.

“You were talking about a man named Mason trying to open Hell. I gather you stopped him.”

“Something like that.”

“And we killed an ass load of devil minions and dark magicians along the way,” says Candy.

Traven turns in his seat to look at her.

“You were there, too?”

She smiles.

“Stark invites me to all his massacres. Isn’t that right?”

She kicks the back of my seat. I look at her in the rearview mirror.

“You’re not helping.”

She smiles and settles down in her seat.

Traven puffs quietly on the Malediction, staring out the window as I steer us into the hills.

“So, because you stopped the sacrifice, you think that Hunter is in Avila?”

“Yeah. Mason and Aelita are behind this whole thing. They set the Qlipuffs on Hunter.”

“Qliphoth. Why not send the demon after you?”

“Because Mason has a truly fucked-up sense of humor. I knew Hunter’s brother and Mason would bust a gut using the kid to get me back up here. Aelita is helping just because she generally hates my guts.”

“I thought you said you saved her.”

“Yeah, when she found out I’m not exactly human, she got testy. A real racist.”

“You know, yesterday if someone told me I’d be driving to an exorcism with a nephilim I would have been surprised. Today, though . . .”

He trails off and smokes the Malediction.

I wish I could read minds like Lucifer. I can hear Traven’s heart beating fast. He’s feeling the mixture of cold and fear that’s excitement. He half knows what’s coming and he’s not sure if he can handle it. That’s me in the arena, waiting for the gates to open to see what I’m going up against in this episode of Kick Stark’s Ass. After a while you learn to live with the fear and ignore it, but it’s never a hundred percent gone. But some kinds of fear can make you more than you are. You face down something bigger than yourself and maybe come out of it with scars, but you’re a little stronger for it. There are other fears that are like a hole in your center where pieces of your soul go down the drain. That kind of fear has nothing to do with the knock-down-drag-out in the arena. That’s the horror of finally knowing how things really are. Who has the power and how they love tossing it around at C;Yt arouneveryone who doesn’t have it.