Текст книги "Kill City Blues"

Автор книги: Richard Kadrey

Соавторы: Richard Kadrey,Richard Kadrey
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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

I’M LOST. I’M not sure if I’m in Hell, L.A., or Kill City. It feels like I’m in the arena. I’m hunting something and I’m being hunted. I’ve seen the water and the smokes they left behind. But this doesn’t look like the arena. Concrete corridors alternate between long straight lines and sharp turns left and right that double back on themselves. Shit. I’m in a maze. I was just in one of these, wasn’t I? Something like it. I was definitely lost, with something on my tail and closing fast.

Whoever is behind me doesn’t feel human. Even if it was a Lurker, I’d pick up breathing or a heartbeat. Maybe it’s an angel. Maybe Aelita? Maybe Medea Bava has learned some hoodoo to hide her breath and heart so I can’t see her coming.

Maybe it’s simpler than that. I can’t detect what’s behind me because what’s behind me isn’t alive. What is it, then? Vampires? Is Tykho here to take the 8 Ball from me? I doubt it. She’s subtler than that. Maybe it’s Paul. Paul and Trevor and all their mechanical brothers.

Imagine all of L.A. filled with windup men wandering empty-headed and waiting for orders and directions and purpose. That’s L.A. in a nutshell. A city of driven creatures, but no one is a hundred percent sure what they’re driven toward. Wealth. Fame. Power. Love. Revenge. These are all the obvious end points for the citizens of a spectral city, but none of them quite encompass a final goal. That’s more fragile. Something that slips away like smoke the moment it’s in your hands. It’s a moonshine cocktail of desperation and desire, the certainty that you can find perfection through sheer willpower and the cold terror that if you do reach the goal it will have twisted into something new. A new fevered need born of the search for this one. Searching for the next goal will breed another. And on and on. L.A. and Kill City full of Pinocchios with whirring gears for brains, all wanting to be real boys but sunk in the certainty that they’ll never become anything because they’re nothing. They came from nothing and are headed for a further and harder nothing. Condemned by their own stupidity to end up buried deep underground with the losers, the dead, and other people’s trash.

WHEN I COME to, the first thing I see is my coat wadded up on the floor across the room, which is weird because I was just wearing it and don’t remember taking it off.

Gradually, the rest of the room comes into focus. More important is that when I try to move I can’t. I’m chained to a wall.

I’m in a high-ceilinged room with Ferox and a handful of other Shoggots. Some have rags pressed against fresh wounds. A few have to be held up by their shithead Shoggot pals. Ferox is arranging tools and delicate surgical instruments on a table. He has the Liston knife in a belt around his waist. I pull on the chains to see if I can break them or work them out of the wall. Nothing. Just my luck. These fuckers are probably dining on rats down here, but when they left the city for this shithole, they brought their hoodoo restraints with them.

Ferox sees me squirming.

“There you are, sleepyhead. I was getting worried that I’d hit you too hard. But you’re with us now, yes? Say something to let us know you understand what’s happening.”

“Is this the right bus? I need to get off at La Cienega.”

Ferox nods, still arranging his toys.

“There we are,” he says. “Wit so hot it almost burns. So good to have you back among the living.”

“Speak for yourself. I was happy asleep.”

“You wouldn’t want to miss your coming-out party, would you, Sandman Slim?” He looks over at me. “Yes, even down here we’ve heard of the infamous Sandman Slim. You and I have a lot in common, you know.”

“You love Night Ranger, too? Unchain me and I’ll buy us a cold six.”

He smiles, showing his sharp, ragged teeth.

“I meant that we’re both nephilim. Though we Shoggots are a slightly more exotic variety.”

“That means what? You’re a mix of angel and pig fucker?”

“While you’re a mix of ordinary angel and a mortal woman, we come from fallen angels.”

I shake my head.

“I’ve been to Hell, Simple Simon. The only Hellion that can come to earth is Lucifer. The others are all stuck Downtown, going severely batshit. And even Lucifer can’t make a nephilim. No fallen angel can.”

“But we’re living proof that it is possible. And when Father Lucifer leads his army to take the earth for Hell, we’ll be there by his side and sit at his right hand in Hell for all eternity.”

I can’t help but laugh a little. It makes my head hurt.

“Damn, did you back the wrong pony. Lucifer isn’t coming back to skull-fuck the earth. The Angra Om Ya are. And they’re not going to be impressed by your story any more than I am.”

Ferox furrows his brow.

“I was hoping that being brothers of a sort, we could be civilized with each other.”

“Is that why I’m chained to a wall?”

“No. That’s so you won’t hurt yourself moving around too much once we start the experiments.”

“What experiments?”

“So, you don’t believe we are who we know we are?”

“I know exactly what you are.”

“Please enlighten me,” Ferox says. He turns to the other Shoggots. “Everybody listen. We’re about to get a lesson in metaphysics from Sandman Slim himself.”

I know I should keep my mouth shut, but now it’s too late to back down. All I can do is press harder.

“I don’t know your family’s history, but I know this from looking at you. You’re not nephilim. You’re losers and fuckups. You especially, Ferox. You drove your family from up there in the city into this sewer, and looking for a way not to have to blow your brains out, you came up with a sad fucking fairy tale about what special little snowflakes you are and how you wanted to be down here all along waiting for Ragnarok. But the Devil isn’t coming for you. God isn’t coming for you. You’ve heard of Sandman Slim? You’re one up on me because I’ve never heard of you assholes and I bet no one I know has either. You can scare these Kill City clans, but out of here you’re just another sideshow act. All you need is a two-headed calf and a pickled punk.”

Ferox comes over and looks at me hard.

“How many scars do you think you have?”

“No idea.”

“Let’s start a new count. One.”

He takes out the Liston knife and draws it across my chest, making a deep, hard cut. I grit my teeth to keep from making a sound. Just because I’m hard to kill doesn’t mean that bullets and knives hurt me any less than anyone else.

He turns to the other Shoggots.

“Who here has a watch? I’d like to know how long it takes for that cut to heal. Time it, please.”

He goes back to his instruments, wiping my blood off the Liston. I wonder if he did all the body mods to the other Shoggots himself or did he encourage them to do it to themselves?

He says, “Before you got here, we were planning on catching the old Roman ourselves. You see, we know about the angel and that the old ghost knows her secret. After we made him tell us what it is, we were going to sell him. But I think we’ll ease him onto the back burner because now we have you. And I think Sandman Slim will fetch a better price. After I’ve finished my research, of course.”

“I’ve got some research for you. Why don’t you cut me loose and I’ll take you to meet Lucifer and he can tell you to your face what morons you are and maybe you can haul your asses out of Kill City and do something for your family.”

Ferox comes over with a magnifying glass. He sticks his fat thumb into the cut on my chest. I try not to, but I flinch a little. He studies the blood on his fingertips, and when he’s done he wipes it on my torn shirt. He rips it open the rest of the way and starts examining my scars.

“Look, if this is your way of getting to know me, why don’t you just friend me on Facebook?”

He lowers the magnifying glass and goes to a brazier in the corner of the room. Comes back with a small branding iron and holds it to my chest until the skin sizzles. When I’m good and cooked he tosses the iron back into the brazier and goes back to looking over my scars.

“Would someone please time how long the burn takes to set? Thank you.”

He looks up at me.

“What I want to do is take you apart. Down to the smallest sliver of your being. I want to see you laid out on a table like a flesh puzzle and put you back together again in my own image. I’ve never had the heart to test the limits of nephilim body on my own family, and even though you and I are different sorts of nephilim, I suspect that the results will be applicable. Don’t you? For instance, I wonder how many organs you can lose before you die.”

He goes back to the table and brings back a scalpel. I wish I could say that this is the first time I’ve been tortured like this, but it isn’t. The Hellions cut me up pretty nicely when I first got to Hell. They’d never seen a live human before. But for them, it was mostly just having a good time, kicking around the weak new kid. Ferox, on the other hand, seems like the real thing. A science groupie with a grudge against God, who rejected his family, and the Devil, who hasn’t rescued them. And right now my sorry carcass is the complaint department.

Ferox says, “Don’t worry. I have no interest in killing you. I’m going to take you to the brink, and then let you rest and heal. When you have, we’ll move on to other tests. All right? Good. Now hold still. This might sting a little.”

He drives the whole head of the scalpel into my gut a few inches below the navel and starts dragging the blade north. My body shakes. I can’t help it. It’s rejecting the blade, this situation, the whole world, trying to shake it off like a dog with mange. I breathe deep. In through my nose and out through my mouth. I won’t give this fucker the satisfaction of screaming. But I might faint and that would be embarrassing too. He cuts up three, four, five inches and stops. My legs and boots are warm with blood. My head spins. I hold my head up, not wanting to black out.

“It’s been bothering me,” says Ferox. “Why are you only wearing one glove? Did you lose the other?”

He pulls my glove off, and dazed as I am, I can still see his eyes go wide when he sees my Kissi hand. He pushes up my sleeve. Seeing that the prosthetic goes up farther, he slices my sleeve all the way to my shoulder, where the Kissi arm and I are attached.

“Glorious. Glorious. That’s not a gift from God. Who have you been spending time with, you naughty boy?”

Ferox taps the scalpel on the arm, listening to it like it’s a tuning fork. He probes it with the tip and tries to slice it. When it doesn’t work he presses harder until the scalpel’s head snaps off. He drops it and goes back to the brazier. It gives me a moment to breathe. I’m lucky that the feeling in the Kissi arm is a little dull. But even though he can’t hurt the arm, I can feel everything he’s doing. I’m getting paranoid about the cut in my belly. Like if I squirm around too much, my intestines or my liver might fall out.

Ferox comes back with the piece of flaming wood and holds it under the arm. This time I can’t hold back. I don’t scream but he knows why I’m groaning. His cut-up face splits into a wide smile.

“You can feel it, can’t you? Not only does this lovely thing move, but it feels too. It’s miraculous.”

He turns to the other Shoggots.

“Who here thinks I deserve an arm like this?”

My head is spinning like a carnival teacup ride. The crowd, on the other hand, is as excited as if he was busting out with an encore of “Free Bird.”

“Get me the saw,” he says.

I’m losing too much blood. I can’t stay awake to fight him. Who am I trying to fool? I’m way beyond fighting anyone. I can barely stay awake. Any second now, my insides are going to slide onto the floor.

I feel pressure on my arm as Ferox tests the best angles to start sawing, but where my head is taking me everything is fine and nothing hurts.

SCREAMS WAKE ME up. How shocked am I as it slowly comes to me that the screaming isn’t coming from my mouth but from across the room? I can’t exactly see what’s happening. It looks like a fight. I think.

The brazier is on the floor and the wall is crawling with weird shadows. I can see the Shoggots all right. Then something else. Gray streaks. Flashes of knives and swords. One of the streaks stops for a second. It’s a man in a gray suit that covers his whole body except for his eyes. There’s something else. He’s short. About four feet tall and slashing away with a blade almost as long as he is tall. He and the other blurs move like psycho-fuck pint-size ninjas.

Then there are hands on me. Someone undoes the chains and I slip to the floor. The world is a series of blurry snapshots. I think I hear a different kind of shouting. Maybe see Candy’s face. Or maybe my insides really are gone and this is a new way to feel death. That’s okay. It seems like I’m lying down, even if I’m not. I’d rather die comfortably than die chained to the wall in some asshole’s man cave.

And that’s pretty much all there is before I stop caring and pass out.

I WAKE UP on a blanket. Candy is next to me, cross-legged, holding my human hand. We’re back in the big room where the fight with the Shoggots first started. Everyone else– Brigitte, Vidocq, Traven, and Delon—is there too, talking, eating, and drinking with the gray mini-ninjas. The fuckers might be small but they’re covered in an impressive amount of Shoggot blood.

“How long was I out?”

“A couple of hours. Think you can move?”

I try to sit up and make it up onto my elbows. Candy has to pull me up the rest of the way. I put my hand on my stomach. Someone has stitched me up and wrapped me in a bandage. Some kind of healing ointment seeps through the material.

“Vidocq did it,” says Candy. “I think he’s been getting lessons from Allegra.”

Delon comes over and kneels next to us.

“How are you feeling?”

“How far are we from the baths?”

“I don’t know. I’m not exactly sure where we are anymore.”

“Figure it out. I’d like to be home when the world ends.”

Delon nods.

“If I can find some landmarks, I’m sure I can get us there.”

“That’s fucking reassuring.”

Delon gets up without saying anything and walks away.

My head has stopped spinning and things are starting to fall together.

“Where did you find those Grays?” I say.

“Is that what they’re called? Hattie knew where to find them,” says Candy.

“Sub Rosa kids told stories about them. I didn’t know there were any left. They’re supposed to be from England or maybe Scotland or Ireland. Somewhere with bad teeth. Ancient fuckers. Old, old magic. I don’t know their real name, but don’t call them fairies or goblins or trolls or any of that Peter Pan shit. They’re real sensitive about it, especially around Americans.”

“Hattie made a deal with them. She said there was a great wizard who would owe them a favor.”

“Great. Where is she?”

“She took off before we headed back. I don’t think she cared who won the fight as long as someone hurt the Shoggots.”

“Christ.”

“All this bullshit is because of Aelita. It’s made me think. Tell me something. Why don’t you ever ask me anything about Doc?”

“Doc Kinski is dead. Why would I?”

“He was your father.”

“That was just a technicality.”

Doc Kinski’s real name was Uriel. He was an archangel and the winged bastard that fucked with my mother, left her lonely and with a kid she didn’t really want. And Aelita murdered him.

“Don’t talk about him that way. And you’re lying. You want to know but you never ask.”

“Like I said. He’s dead. Deader than either of us will ever be. When an angel dies there’s nothing left. It’s like he was never there.”

Candy looks away at the others. Brigitte looks a little past the sell-by date, though not as bad as me. Vidocq has bandaged both of her arms and her left hand. Traven has his arm around her. She leans against him.

“Doc cared about you. He never said it because you’re both idiots, but he worried about you.”

“Can we do family therapy later? I’m busy hemorrhaging.”

Candy doesn’t say anything for a minute.

I say, “I should have brought some Aqua Regia with me.”

“Yeah, you need booze with a cut-up belly. You could have died back there.”

“But I didn’t. You Robin Hooded me.”

She looks down at her hands.

“What’s going to happen when we die? Am I going to go to Hell? I’ve killed people. Not like today. When I was feeding.”

“You’re not human. I don’t know that the laws are the same for you.”

“Did you see any Lurkers in Hell?”

“Some.”

“Then maybe they do. Besides, you’re not exactly human and you’re always saying you’re going to Hell.”

“I’m human enough. Half of me is. I figure that’s enough for a ticket Downtown.”

She holds the torn halves of my shirt together like maybe they’ll heal like skin. They don’t.

“Thanks for showing me a little bit of Hell,” she says. “I’m not as afraid of it anymore.”

“What’s this all about?”

She takes a breath.

“What’s going to happen to us when we die?”

“I don’t know. I never saw any Jades in Hell and no one knows what happens to nephilim.”

“Hmm,” she says like she’s thinking.

I say, “What you really want to know is that after we die, are we ever going to see each other again.”

“Hell didn’t look so bad.”

“Look, I’m just speculating. I don’t even know if either of us has a regular soul.”

“I think if one of us dies and leaves the other alone, that’s fucked.”

I pull her head down onto my shoulder.

“Then let’s not die. Dying’s for losers.”

“Sorry to tell you, tough guy, but I think that includes us.”

I shrug and let her go.

“I don’t have any answers. We’ll have to figure things out as we go along, just like every other asshole on the planet.”

“Okay. But when this is over we’re going to talk about Doc.”

“Oh, good. Something to live for.”

One of the Grays comes over. He’s a little taller and looks a little older than the rest. His hair and short beard are streaked with silver.

“Would you give us a few moments alone, lass?”

Candy kisses my bruised knuckles and goes to sit with Vidocq.

The little man sits down across from me. In the crap light it looks like he’s eating chunks of venison or something. Then I see that he’s cutting up one of Vidocq’s Power Bars with a folding knife.

“Is that good?”

“Passable,” he says. “The priest gave it to me. He’s a funny one. Not as much of a stick up his arse as most of the pope’s curs.”

“He was excommunicated.”

“Ah. I like him better already,” he says. “So you’re the great wizard.”

“I’m Stark. Just Stark.”

I put out my hand. He takes it in his surprisingly large, callused mitt and shakes.

“I’m Arawn. Leader of this lost, buggered band.”

“Thanks for getting me out of there. Did you leave any Shoggots standing?”

“A few. Though not enough to trouble a church mouse, much less a grand wizard such as yourself.”

He can barely get it out without laughing.

“Fuck them. No one is going to miss them.”

He points to my midsection with his knife.

“You’re recovering well from your wounds.”

“I heal fast.”

“That’s good. Not always, though, is it? I heard of a vampire back in the old country. They’re fast healers too, you know. This parish father got ahold of one, don’t know how, but he did. Kept it in the basement of the church for weeks. Tortured it horribly. Said he was trying to understand the beast so he could conquer them for God. I think he was just having fun. Just goes to show you that healing fast isn’t always a good thing. Torture him all night. Let him heal all day and then start again. I think that’s what your friend back there had in mind for you.”

“Interesting story. A little bird told me that you Grays don’t like vampires.”

He cuts off and swallows another piece of the Power Bar.

“Just the ones that make bargains they don’t keep.”

I’ll have to ask Tykho about that sometime. Assuming she didn’t send whoever is following us. Then I’ll probably have to kill her.

I feel around for my coat.

“So, you’re satisfied with our services?” says Arawn.

“Yeah. I think I owe you a favor now.”

I take out a Malediction and light it. Instantly I feel better.

“Indeed you do.”

“What do you want?”

“What can you do?”

I take a long drag off the smoke. Wonder if the smoke is going to leak out through damaged lungs and fill my gut. I guess we’ll know if I start farting smoke rings.

“To tell you the truth, most of the hoodoo I’ve done over the last few years has been about killing or stealing things. I’m rusty at pretty much everything else, but I’m willing to give it a try.”

“That’s not what I was hoping to hear.”

“Sorry. Let’s try it this way. Tell me the first thing that comes into your head. The first thing you want.”

He sets down the knife and Power Bar.

“I’d like this century and the Sub Rosa that rose up in it to disappear like dust on the wind.”

“We brought you here, didn’t we?”

“Aye. You did. And forgot us when things didn’t go just the way you wanted.”

“What happened? How did you end up in Kill City?”

He looks away, into the lens of the flashlight, like he’s staring into a campfire.

“We come from ancient magic. Powerful stuff back home, but it’s weak in this new godforsaken land. We could still fight and scare the other families, but we were only half the warriors our patrons counted on and they never let us forget it.”

“So they ditched you.”

“Ditched. Buried. Forgotten.”

“I’m not going to be able to help you turn back time or nuke L.A. Anything else you want?”

“Revenge on the house that brought us here and left us, disgraced and abandoned.”

“Which house is it?”

“The Blackburns. Have you heard of them?”

What a fucking surprise.

“Everyone’s heard of the Blackburns. They run the California Sub Rosa here these days.”

Arawn nods. Looks at my cigarette. I hand it to him. He takes a pull and nods. Starts to hand it back.

“Keep it. I have more.”

He smokes contently for a minute.

He says, “The family was strong-willed and the Sub Rosa so full of themselves. I’m not surprised that the kingdom is theirs.”

“It isn’t exactly a kingdom. And it’s in kind of a mess right now. But they have a lovely Victorian with indoor plumbing and everything.”

“You know, we weren’t going to come at first, but then Hattie said it was you who rescued poor Teyrnon.”

“He was the kid in gray? I don’t like three against one. It upsets my delicate sensibilities.”

“I took from that that you were a man of honor, but you refuse my simplest requests.”

“What I’m telling you is that you and me together, my friends, your mariachis, and Patton’s Seventh Army couldn’t take down the Blackburns. The entire hoodoo population of California would come after us.”

He throws down the cigarette.

“Powerful wizard. You’re all talk. Typical Sub Rosa. Damn the lot of you.”

“Why don’t you just go home?”

“Our kind can’t cross the open water. We’d perish.”

“How did you get here?”

“Magic, you dolt.”

I offer him another Malediction. He hesitates and then takes it. I light it for him.

“Okay. That’s something I can do. I can take you home without going over the ocean.”

“How would you go about that?”

“Ever heard of the Room of Thirteen Doors?”

“A child’s tale.”

“I have the key. We step into a shadow and I can take you anywhere you want. Where are you from?”

“Cambria.”

“Okay. I might have to look that one up on a map.”

His eyes narrow.

“If you truly have the key to the Room, why are you wandering down here?”

“I have to have some idea where I’m going before I know which door to open,” I say, and nod toward Delon. “And I don’t want that one to know that I can do it.”

Arawn turns and looks at Delon, who’s coming back inside. With luck, he’s been scouting for ways to the baths.

“There is something not right about him.”

“He’s not a man. A Tick-Tock Man made him. He’s something like a familiar, only mostly machine.”

Arawn looks at me.

“And you let such a thing lead you?”

“I don’t have a choice. He knows the way and we don’t.”

He picks up his knife.

“With a blade in your hand there’s always a choice.”

“What do you say? Do you want to go home?”

He shakes his head slowly.

“No. We won’t return as paupers and fools. We came here as magicians and warriors, and that’s how we’ll return.”

“I don’t know what else I can give you.”

He looks over his shoulder.

“The lass, the one with the short hair in the hide jacket who stays so close to you . . .”

“What about her?”

“Before she turned into a beast—and an impressive one she was—she used an equally impressive knife. Black and sharp as a crow’s gaze. She said you had one just like it.”

I take the black blade from my coat. The weight in my hand feels so natural and perfect. Like it’s an extension of my arm. I’ve had it since the arena. It’s one of my favorite weapons and the key to every car and bike in L.A.

“You sure you want this old thing? I bet Paul has a lot of other toys in his bag.”

“If that’s what I asked for, that’s what I want. Or can’t you honor that request either?”

I hand Arawn the knife.

“It’s yours. It’ll cut through anything made in this world.”

“Will it, now?”

“You can start cars with it too. Do you have your learner’s permit?”

Arawn walks to a pile of rubble and swings the blade. Cuts a section of concrete taller than he is cleanly in half. He goes to the wall and slices a piece out of an I-beam. He holds up the blade to check it and nods at what he sees.

He comes back over and sits next to me on the blanket.

“Yes. This will do nicely.”

“We’re square, then?”

“This little blade for your life? What do you think?”

“I see your point. The offer still stands. Once I find what I’m after, I can take you home.”

“When we’re ready we’ll find you.”

“If you’re looking to make your fortune, make it quick. The world might be ending soon.”

He stands and picks up his folding knife and the remains of the Power Bar.

“The world is always ending. A fiefdom rises. A fiefdom falls. It’s the way of things.”

“This time is different. If it happens, all the fiefdoms that ever were or will ever be are right down the toilet.”

He cocks his head.

“Well, that’s different.”

“A little bit.”

“Thanks for the warning. We’ll see about making our way in the world a wee bit faster.”

He starts away and I call after him, “Have you heard of a ghost people call the old Roman?”

Arawn stops.

“Remember when you asked if we dislike vampires?”

“Yes.”

“We like ghosts even less.”

His men get up and stand around him.

“Do you know how to get there?”

“Not a clue. Thanks again for the knife. Ta.”

He starts up the stairs and his men follow. The Grays don’t make a sound as they go. They march into the dark and in a few seconds it’s like they were never there.

“I think I found something,” says Delon.

He’s squatting, leaning against the wall and drinking water from a bottle that’s three quarters empty. How long have we been in Kill City? It seems like a couple of days, but it can’t be more than a few hours.

“We turn right at the end of the hall, past a collapsed ceiling, and there’s a door that leads down.”

Vidocq stands and hefts his pack onto his shoulder.

“One of the Gray men told me about a door nearby. That must be it,” he says.

“Saddle up, everyone. The sooner we get downstairs, the sooner we’re out of Tombstone,” I say. Big talker. I try to stand up and it feels like my head is spinning around like Linda Blair’s. Candy comes over and helps me to my feet.

Everyone gathers up their gear and heads out. Traven takes a minute to change the batteries in his flashlight, then starts up the stairs with the rest of us. Good-bye, Shoggot country. Good riddance. If Hattie doesn’t poison your water supply, I’ll be very surprised.

The floor at the end of the hall is buckled like someone squeezed it from both ends like an accordion. Delon is back in the lead. Vidocq follows with Brigitte and Candy right behind. I’m at the back with Traven, stumbling along like a toddler just learning to walk.

“Are you in much pain?” he says.

“Just enough, thanks. Sorry I dragged you into this mess, Father.”

“I’m sorry I haven’t been more use along the way. Maybe I should have learned to use a gun.”

I have to lean my arm against the wall to get over the places where the folds in the floor rise above my knees.

“You might have noticed that we have a lot of shooters and it hasn’t kept us out of trouble. You’ll get to show your stuff when we find the Qomrama. You know anything more about it? Where it came from? Who made it?”

Staying back with me, Father Traven has fallen behind the others. I don’t like being the gimp in the group.

“Who made it is an interesting question. Most texts say it was the Angra, as a way to destroy our God. But there was speculation among a group of Byzantine scholars that God himself made it. That it’s not a weapon against the Angra but against himself.”

“God was going to take a bullet for the team?”

“Even that’s disputed. Maybe God intended to sacrifice himself in hopes that it would appease the Angra.”

“That doesn’t make sense. If our God made it, and Ruach let Aelita have it, she’d know how to use it, only she doesn’t. She got lucky killing Neshamah, but she can’t count on getting all the brothers on luck.”

“There’s one more theory. A minority theory, but an interesting one. It says that a high priestess is the only one that can bring the Qomrama into this universe from where the Angra are exiled.”

“How?”

“No one knows, but the theory continues that the reason the Qomrama is hard to control is that it’s not just an inanimate weapon. That it’s a kind of Qliphoth.”

“A demon? Then it’s a piece of one of the old gods. That means it’s alive.”

Traven shrugs. I can breathe again, so we start walking.

“As I said, it’s a minority opinion, but with the Qomrama, I wouldn’t put anything out of the realm of possibility.”

“Neither would I. Ever notice that we live in a very strange universe?”

Traven brushes dust out of his eyes and off his deeply lined face.

“What’s left to believe in? The God in Heaven isn’t to be trusted, and a piece of that very same God is also Lucifer in Hell? How are we supposed to go on knowing these things?”

“Cheer up, Father. It could have been ten.”

He gives me a look.

I say, “It’s a Hellion joke. When God threw the rebel angels out of Heaven, they fell for nine days.”

Traven nods and says, “I get it. Things could always be worse. I suppose that’s true.”

“I won’t tell you any other Hellion jokes. Most sound like the Three Stooges riffing on farts and vivisection.”