Текст книги "Kill City Blues"

Автор книги: Richard Kadrey

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I lie down on my back.

“So all in all a good day for you.”

“Shut up,” she says.

I move closer to her. Put my hand on her leg.

“This is going to happen sometimes. It’s how my life works. You can’t always come with me and I can’t dodge every bullet. Just remember that bastards tried to kill me for eleven years in Hell and almost a year up here and no one’s done it.”

She says, “That’s not true. You’ve died a couple of times.”

“Not like lying-there-getting-smelly kind of dead. Just technically dead.”

She hits the keyboard harder. She still won’t look at me. I really want one of Vidocq’s cigarettes.

“You’ve got to understand that if this is going to work between us.”

“I don’t want to,” she says.

“I don’t always either. But it’s how things are. ‘Death smiles at us all and all a man can do is smile back.’ ”

“Where did you hear that crap?”

“I read it in a book Downtown. It’s Marcus Aurelius.”

She nods.

“Quote a dead guy. Real smooth.”

I kiss her leg and get up. I stink from sweat and burned skin and need a shower.

On my way to the bathroom I say, “I’m going Downtown to see Mr. Muninn. You can come with me or you can stay here and sulk.”

I stand under the hot water for a long time, washing off the grime and dead skin. The wound has already closed, though I can feel the bullet inside me.

I put on a robe and go back into the bedroom.

Candy has closed the laptop. She and Vidocq are quietly watching the movie. I sit down beside her on the bed. She balls up her fist and punches my real arm.

“Ow.”

“I wasn’t sulking. I was mad. And not entirely at you.”

“I know. Trust me. If I could, I’d be the most boring bastard in the world.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” says Vidocq.

“Okay. Tenth most boring bastard.”

Candy says, “Sometimes you get worked up. Just promise me you’ll be careful.”

“I’m always careful.”

“Really? How does stopping to grab money in the middle of an explosion count as careful?”

The fake Qomrama and the cash are lying nearby on the bed. I pick up the money.

“Did you count it?”

“It’s just shy of four thousand dollars.”

“Chicken-and-waffles money.”

Along the edges, the bills are as crisp and singed as I am. I show them to Vidocq. He chuckles and leans in closer.

He says, “That’s a strange design on the clip. It almost reminds me of the Golden Vigil. Though not entirely.”

The Golden Vigil. God’s Pinkertons on earth. They were a Homeland Security offshoot that Vidocq and I used to work for. The Vigil worked with a special group of agents using angelic tech, supposedly monitoring and policing nefarious hoodoo-related activity. Zombies. Rogue vampires. Demon attacks. Hell, they even put Lucifer on a terrorist watch list. Mostly, though, they were just another set of bullheaded cops in better suits. U.S. Marshal Larson Wells and, more importantly, Aelita ran the show. That’s until she went on her god-killing crusade and the government shut the Vigil down. Not a tear was shed.

“Not quite? You’re sure?”

Vidocq nods.

“I’m positive. Not the Vigil.”

“But still similar.”

“Yes. Similar.”

I toss the money back on the bed.

“I wish I could have talked to Garrett. All this cash. Passports. A mechanical familiar. Who the hell was he waiting for?”

“And who was the bomb for? Monsieur Garrett or the party buying from him?” says Vidocq.

“He had a familiar?” says Candy.

“Yeah; a good one too. I should have grabbed the asshole’s wallet.”

I can see Kasabian banging away on his own computer, building his Web site.

“Did Old Yeller find out anything on Moseley?”

Candy says, “Not much. He had a record but all minor stuff. He was kind of a religious nut. A couple of arrests for protesting outside abortion clinics. A fine for trashing a Scientology office and some Orthodox graves at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. It looks like he’s been through every religion on the planet. There’s photos of him in a dozen getups from different religious sects and cults.”

“A lost soul in a hard city. A volatile combination,” says Vidocq.

“I got the 8 Ball and the cash,” I say to him. “You steal anything fun lately?”

He shakes his head.

“Jewelry here and there. A vase for the apartment. Helping look for your weapon puts too many temptations in my path and the old habits are the hardest to break.”

He puffs his cigarette.

“And sometimes stealing a bit helps. Not everyone who comes to the clinic can pay.”

Vidocq’s girlfriend, Allegra, runs a hoodoo clinic for down-and-out Sub Rosas and Lurkers. Doc Kinski used to run it with Candy taking care of the front desk. Then Aelita murdered him. That bothered a lot of people, myself included. Kinski was my father.

“How is Allegra?”

“Well. She has trained two competent assistants.” He looks at Candy. “She misses you working beside her.” He looks at me. “And believe it or not, she misses you.”

Allegra didn’t take it well when she found out that I’d become Lucifer. She accused me of all kinds of nefarious shit. Mostly Sunday school stuff, which I didn’t expect from her. We haven’t spoken much since.

“Maybe we ought to keep it that way,” I say. “Whenever we get near each other, someone says something stupid.”

“Someone?” asks Candy.

“Okay. Me.”

“And yet her desire to see you both remains unchanged,” Vidocq says.

I toss him Garrett’s cash.

“Give her this.”

He nods and puts it in the pocket of his greatcoat.

“We both thank you for this.”

Candy says, “Can I have the clip?”

I say, “Why? We don’t have any money.”

Vidocq takes the clip off the cash and hands it to her. Her eyes light up.

“I just like it,” she says. “It’s shiny. I’ll find something to do with it.”

I take off the robe. The bullet wound stings a little, but the blisters hurt like a son of a bitch. I put on my leather bike pants and boots. Find an old Maximum Overdrive video-store T-shirt that’s not covered in bullet holes or blood and put that on too.

“I don’t suppose you’d consider taking me along,” says Vidocq.

“To Hell? I don’t want to take her. Why would I subject you to it too?”

“I’d like to see the afterlife. With my condition it’s doubtful I’ll ever see it legitimately.”

A hundred and fifty years ago Vidocq made himself immortal. It wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t trying to do it. Just one of his alchemical experiments took a wrong turn and left him with a condition most people would kill for. Me, I’d rather have X-ray vision. At least it would be fun at parties.

I say, “Forget it. Allegra would truly kill me dead if I took you.”

He sighs, knowing I’m right.

“And she’d be right, of course. You’re a terrible influence on us all.”

He nods to me and blows Candy a kiss. He holds up the cash.

“And thank you for this,” he says before leaving through the grandfather clock, the real entrance to our secret hideaway.

“He’s right. You are a terrible influence,” says Candy.

“I thought that’s why you stuck around.”

“There’s also the free food and movies.”

“Free computers too.”

“And getting blown up and shot at.”

“Yeah. I’ve got to work on my ducking skills.”

“Please do.” She doesn’t say anything for a minute. Then, “So, we’re really going?”

“You’re the one who wanted to.”

“Yeah, but now I’m a little scared.”

“Good. That means you’re sane.”

“So, we just go there? No spells? We don’t have to sacrifice chickens or pray to any hoary overlords of the deep or something?”

“You can dance naked around a maypole if you want. Me? I’m just walking in.”

She gets up.

“Okay. Let’s do it.”

“Don’t wear anything you really like.”

“Why?”

“You’re won’t be springtime fresh when you get back and I’m not sure the stink of Hell comes out in the wash.”

I WENT DOWNTOWN when I was nineteen. I was thirty when I came out. I’ve only been back on earth for around eleven months. Sometimes it seems as long was the previous eleven years.

Another magician, Mason Faim, sent me to Hell in a deal to supersize his hoodoo power. He also wanted me out of the picture. We were a pair of Sub Rosa golden boys. Way too clever and powerful for our own good. The difference between us was that Mason had to work and study his ass off to stay on top of the hoodoo heap. Me? I could always improvise a spell or hex and have it fly. That was my angel half at work, only I didn’t know that at the time. When Mason got rid of me he was top dog in L.A. He murdered my old girlfriend, Alice. He tried to take over Hell and start a new war with Heaven. You have to hand it to the boy. He knew how to dream big. So I killed him.

But in a way, Mason won. He wanted to destroy me, and the one who went to Hell sure isn’t who came out. I was James Stark going down but Sandman Slim when I left. Eleven years of torture and fighting in the arena to entertain monsters will alter your perspective on life.

Most nights I still dream about Hell. I can feel it inside me. It’s in the stink of my sweat. Flashing on the place even for a second makes me furious and sometimes afraid and sometimes ashamed of both those things.

On the plus side, I got up close and personal with the killer inside me. I learned I was good at taking lives. Doc Kinski called me a natural-born killer, so now it’s what I do. But I don’t always like it, and when I do, I don’t always like myself for liking it. That’s what Hell is. It’s the shithole bottom of the universe, but it’s a place where you’ll learn more about yourself than you ever wanted to know.

I GET A pack of Maledictions from a box under a table in the living room. Maledictions are the most popular cigarettes in Hell. The only brand I really like. The taste is, well, unique. Like a tire fire in a candy factory. With luck, the angel part of me is immune to cancer. If it isn’t I’m going to be a solid two-hundred-pound tumor.

Candy gives me a faint smile as I take her hand and we step through a shadow into the Room of Thirteen Doors. I open the door to Hell but I don’t take her through. I hold her there looking at the place.

“Wow. It really does smell like sulfur,” she says.

“Don’t worry. When you get inside, between the sewers and the Hellion stink, you’ll forget all about the sulfur.”

“You know how to show a girl a good time.”

“Nothing but the best for you.”

“Whoa.”

This is what I’ve been waiting for.

“What do you see?”

“It looks just like L.A. A more fucked-up L.A. but still L.A.”

“It’s called a Convergence. A kind of magical fuckup where one place gets layered on top of another. When I first landed in Hell, it was all dark palaces and cobblestone streets. Now it’s L.A. None of that changes what Hell is. It just makes it easier to get around.”

“Somehow, none of that is very reassuring.”

“That’s Hell in a nutshell. You ready?”

“Yes. No. Yes. I think so.”

“Before we go in, here are a couple of rules. And they’re nonnegotiable. Stay close to me. Close enough for me to grab if things get weird. If anyone starts anything let me handle it. No Jade stuff. You see any damned souls, don’t look them in the eye. They’re used to me but another live human could freak them out.”

“I’m not human.”

“You look human. That’s enough. Also, don’t talk to anyone but Mr. Muninn.”

“Who?”

“The current Lucifer.”

“Right. Mr. Muninn. You told me about him.”

I squeeze her hand. She squeezes back.

“Banzai,” I say, and pull her inside.

WE COME OUT on the front gates of Hollywood Forever Cemetery. The Hellion version is a train wreck. Open graves. Smashed headstones. Statues and tombs swallowed by flames. It looks like it was looted by the Golden Horde and shit on by King Ghidorah.

I lead her out the front gate, where a block-long street market has set up. It wasn’t here the last time I was Downtown, but a lot of things are probably different now that Mr. Muninn is ringmaster.

We’re noticed immediately. A couple of living beings, one of whom used to be Lucifer, tend to stand out down here.

Candy digs her nails into my hand, but she doesn’t show any actual fear. Hellions are fallen angels. Some of them look almost human. Others are walking, talking nightmares. Like mutant versions of fish, reptiles, or insects, or all three. The crowd in the market is a nice assortment pack of all the different Hellion types.

The chatter and the hawkers’ calls trail off as the crowd turns its rheumy eyes on us. The only sound is the thin Hellion breeze, the sizzle of cooked meat, and grating Hellion music from a windup player. No one moves toward us. What are they seeing? Some version of Lucifer or Sandman Slim with a dangerous Lurker on his arm?

I’m not waiting around to find out. I’ve seen Hellions riot and I don’t need to see it again. Not with Candy here.

I head to a stall where a merchant has mugwump meat turning on a spit. The smell is somewhere between filet mignon and coffin liquor. The fire throws up some nice fat shadows. I pull Candy into one and we go back out through the Room.

My aim is better the second time and we come out in the lobby of Lucifer’s palace. Back inside the Beverly Wilshire for the second time today. This time I’m not accepting any mystery packages from the front desk.

I can see a dozen guards in the lobby. I don’t wait to see if Muninn has posted more. I pull Candy over to Lucifer’s private elevator. Like the crowd in the market, the guards look more confused than anything else.

Candy tugs on my arm.

“Are we going somewhere soon? ’Cause there’s like a hundred guys watching us through the windows.”

She’s right. A mob of the legions guarding the palace is clustered around the lobby windows. This isn’t any time to find out if they’re happy to see their old boss or if they want to flay me alive. I pull Candy to the elevator.

One of the guards all of a sudden grows a pair and yells, “Halt!”

When I look he already has his rifle leveled at us.

I let go of Candy’s hand and turn and face him. Put out my arm and manifest a Gladius, an angelic flaming sword. It’s impressive anywhere, but inside the lobby it’s like the sun reflecting off the skin of a cruise missile.

“Make your move, shit heel. I took Mason Faim’s head and I can take yours.”

He stands there for a minute pointing his gun at me. I know he’s not going to shoot. There’s a window on these things. Someone points a gun at you and doesn’t shoot in the first few seconds, they get thinking about the consequences. And the more they think, the less likely they are to pull the trigger. This clown’s been thinking long enough to whistle the long version of “Layla.”

He looks around at his Hellion buddies. None of them have their guns up. Why should they? That’s Lucifer upstairs, king high prick himself. If he can’t handle Sandman Slim with a chick civilian in tow, then what the hell good is he?

I touch a brass plate on the wall and the elevator doors slide open. The guards stand and stare. Touch the plate inside the elevator and the doors close and we start up.

“So far Hell is a barrel of monkeys,” says Candy.

“You ought to come on Halloween. Everyone dresses up like The Brady Bunch. Seriously. The show is huge down here.”

Her heart isn’t just beating fast, it’s trying to pound its way out of her chest and hop a plane to Bora Bora.

“You couldn’t have walked us into Lucifer’s living room or something?” she says.

“That would be rude. I stuck the guy here, I have to show him a little respect.”

She takes a couple of deep breaths.

“Sorry. I thought I was more ready for this. I’ve seen some crazy Lurker stuff, but . . .”

“But not a whole world of it? Don’t feel bad. No one’s prepared for this dump.”

“So this is where Sandman Slim comes from.”

“Yep.”

“You killed a lot of those guys down here.”

“Don’t be sexist. There are women Hellions too. And I killed pretty much everything down here at one time or other. And when I wasn’t doing it in the arena, Azazel, my old slave master, was sending me out to kill anyone on his shit list. Until I killed him.”

“The monster who kills monsters.”

“That’s my name. Don’t wear it out.” Then, “Nothing’s going to happen to you. I promise.”

“I believe you.”

She lets go of my hand and loops her arm in mine. We must look funny and weirdly formal when the doors open, like kids dressing up in their parents’ clothes.

“James, so good to see you,” says Mr. Muninn.

I’m not sure he means it, but he gives me a quick hug, something he’s never done before. He must really be smarting to see someone besides neurotic Hellions. Now I feel bad I didn’t come down sooner.

Mr. Muninn is entirely black. Like squid-ink black. He’s also as round as a beach ball. He’s dressed in a long brocade robe woven with a subtle fire pattern. Under it glitters Lucifer’s battle armor, the ultimate symbol of power down here. It lets everyone know who’s in charge. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to call him Lucifer or what, so I just take a shot.

“Nice to see you too, Mr. Muninn.”

He smiles. He’s already tired of being called Lucifer and all the thousand toadying variations you get with the penthouse. I know how he feels.

“You’ve brought a friend,” he says.

Muninn looks a little bemused, like I’m a neighbor kid who brought a stray cougar cub into the living room. Is that how Muninn sees Candy? I hadn’t thought about how he might react to a Jade. Maybe I’m overthinking it. I’ve dragged a civilian down with me into the worst place in existence and he probably doesn’t approve.

“Mr. Muninn, this is my friend Candy.”

“Very nice to meet you. I see you’re like our friend James here, with his penchant for a single name.”

“Yeah,” she says. “For the longest time all I knew was Stark. It must have taken him six months to tell me the James part.”

“Well, I still don’t know your last name,” I say.

She shrugs.

“As far as I know, I don’t have one. When I have to use one I usually just go with Jade.”

“Candy Jade. It sounds like one of your cartoon characters.”

“Sandman Slim sounds like grout cleaner.”

Muninn puts out his hand.

“Welcome to my humble home, Candy.”

She shakes, but her arm tightens around mine. She’s scared, like she’s afraid she’ll burst into flames if she touches him. But she’s brave and does it anyway. No flames. No explosions. Not even smoke.

“Was it smart to bring someone more innocent than you or I to this place?”

“I introduced her to Samael and she survived. She knows about me, so she was twisting my arm to meet the new Lucifer.”

Muninn says, “I wish I could meet a new Lucifer too. I don’t suppose you want the job back.”

“I’m afraid not.”

Muninn sighs and waves us to a sitting area.

The place isn’t anything like the penthouse when I lived here. I never bothered fixing it up. I left all of the anonymously expensive hotel furniture right where it was. Now the place looks like a museum. Back in L.A., Muninn lived in an underground cavern full of art, machines, toys, food, and geegaws from every civilization since the last ice age. It looks like he’s moved half of it down here.

Candy and I sit on a solid-gold love seat with tentacles for armrests and shaggy horsehide cushions. From the look of the thing it’s probably nestled the rear end of at least a couple of emperors. Muninn drops into a vintage La-Z-Boy recliner, but he keeps it upright for his guests.

“That’s not quite the look I was expecting for the new Devil,” I say.

Muninn glances across the room.

“I have a throne around here somewhere. A piece that’s even grander than the seat you’re on now. I wish I could greet all my guests in this chair. The throne plays hell with my back, no pun intended.”

“Sorry again about sticking you down here, but I had stuff I needed to get back to in the world.”

Out of the corner of my eye I catch Candy’s lips flicker into a brief smile.

“I understand. I should never have let Samael play his little trick and force you into taking his place. I created Hell, which makes me responsible for its well-being.”

Candy looks puzzled, and then lets it go.

I say, “So how’s it going down here?”

Muninn leans back into the chair.

“Better than it was,” he says.

“Better than when I ran it.”

“Oh my, yes. I’m rebuilding much faster than you were and it seems to have raised everyone’s spirits.”

“You know I had to drag my feet, right? I had to keep these Hellion bastards running around making plans so they were too busy to get together and kill me.”

“I understand completely. But it didn’t help the psyches of those who had to live here.”

“That’s why I wanted you to take over. I knew you could make things right and hold off the wolves too.”

Muninn looks at Candy.

“And what do you think, young lady? Did James’s hundred days as Lucifer improve his disposition?”

“Sure. He’s a pussycat now. Of course, I kicked his ass when he got home, so maybe it was that. Why don’t you ask him?”

“Why don’t you not?” I say. “Have you heard anything about Aelita or the 8 Ball?”

He shifts in his chair, trying to ease his back.

“Aelita still has confederates in Hell and she tried to use them to hide the Qomrama here. General Semyazah and I persuaded her that that was a bad idea.”

“I wonder if she took it to Heaven?”

“I doubt it. Aelita has as many enemies as allies there. Heaven isn’t a safe place for her.”

“If she can’t hide the 8 Ball in Heaven or Hell . . .”

“Then it’s still on earth,” says Candy.

“That’s a relief. I got stuck with the fake Qomrama earlier today and was starting to think I’d wasted the last month chasing my tail.”

“No. You are right to keep looking there,” says Muninn.

“How do you know she didn’t hide it in Antarctica or the bottom of the ocean?” says Candy.

Muninn says, “It’s my understanding that soon after getting the Qomrama, Aelita was pursued by a contingent of loyal angels from Heaven, so she had to hide it quickly. I suspect it’s still somewhere in Los Angeles.”

Candy shakes her head.

“Why doesn’t God just kill the bitch?” she says.

Muninn settles back in the chair and looks at me.

“Candy, remember how Mr. Muninn said that he was responsible for Hell because he made it?”

“Yes.”

“Lucifer didn’t make Hell. God did.”

“Yeah. I thought that sounded funny.”

“It makes more sense when you know that before he was Lucifer, Mr. Muninn was God.”

Candy looks at me to see if I’m joking. Then she looks at Muninn.

“I’m afraid he’s telling the truth,” Muninn says. “And the reason I don’t, as you said, kill the bitch is I can’t.”

“Why not?”

I say, “He’s not as strong as he used to be. See, God isn’t exactly God anymore. He had sort of a nervous breakdown. Instead of one big God, there’s five little ones.”

“Four,” says Muninn. “Aelita has already killed Neshamah.”

“Word is your brother Ruach is tearing it up in Heaven.”

Muninn unconsciously squeezes the easy chair’s arms.

“Yes. You see, Ruach is the oldest brother. The oldest fragment. He covets the power the rest of us have. He’s a little mad, I think.”

“Was he always that way?”

“He was always a bit fragile. Then my brother Nefesh did what he did.”

“What does he do?” says Candy.

“Our quarrels became more and more violent. Finally Ruach flew into a rage. He demanded that the rest of us relinquish our powers or he would kill us all. When we wouldn’t he attacked us. Nefesh was the one who finally stopped him, in much the way I cast the first Lucifer out of Heaven.”

“With a thunderbolt.”

“Yes. It left Ruach blind and partially deaf. His anger and fear of us grew to the point where the rest of us knew we couldn’t stay.”

Candy says, “So there’s a God in Heaven, only he’s just a little piece. And there’s other pieces of God running around. And you’re a piece of God and Lucifer at the same time.”

“In a nutshell,” says Mr. Muninn.

Candy pats my arm in mock sympathy.

“Now I understand why you are the way you are. The universe is a lot more fucked up than I ever imagined.”

“Can your brothers help?” I say. “Where are they?”

Muninn waves a hand at the window.

“Here. There. Anywhere. I haven’t talked to them in a long time.”

“Okay. So, anything new with Merihim and Deumos? Are they at war yet?”

Merihim is a big wheel in the old official Hellion church. Hell’s Vatican. Strictly an old-boys club. No girls allowed. Deumos and her sister Hellions had a little problem with that. They started their own church, worshipping a kind of goddess that’s supposed to be the new post-God deity. A fairy godmother to kiss all the scraped knees and make everything all right again. One of the last things I did when I was Lucifer was give the women their own church. After I left, Merihim and his crew burned it down. What are little boys made of? Snips and snails and rotten little assholes that don’t want to share their toys.

“Not quite at war but far from peace. Deumos and many of the other sisters have gone into hiding,” says Muninn. “You might be amused to know that Medea Bava went into hiding with them.”

Medea Bava was the Sub Rosa’s Inquisition. Their ultimate enforcer. The lone-wolf cop who handed out life sentences in a little place called Tartarus, the Hell below Hell, where souls were burned to stoke the celestial furnaces. It was a place no one ever escaped from. Only I escaped and I took all the other lunatics in the asylum out with me. After that, Medea disappeared. I hate her almost as much as Aelita.

Muninn sighs.

“She lost faith in me—the God part, at least—when you destroyed Tartarus, so she joined Deumos and the sisters. Another voice lost in the wilderness.”

“Fuck Medea. She’s not a voice anyone needs in their head, especially you. She’s as crazy as Aelita. Deumos is the only one of the bunch who’s sane, and she’s completely deluded. And Merihim is just a power-hungry prick. He’s long overdue for a hard fall down a long flight of stairs, if you get my drift.”

“I’m afraid I do.”

“I don’t know how he did it, but Merihim used to crank-call me in L.A. after I left here.”

“He was upset with how you left things.”

“Cry me a river, pal,” I say. “Isn’t there something you can do to get Merihim and the church under control and off Deumos’s back?”

“That would be taking sides.”

“Fine. Then stop them both and make them play nice.”

He looks around, uncomfortable. Slams his fist down on the arm of the chair.

“It’s not that simple,” Muninn shouts.

It’s the first time I’ve heard him raise his voice about anything.

“You never understood how being a ruler works, James. And you have no idea what a deity is. You want me to make myself known and manifest to humankind. Do you really think that would solve anything? Or would it make things worse? You, like Samael, want total free will for the angels.”

Muninn sweeps his arms out to the broken landscape of Hell.

“Behold. That is what angelic free will looks like.”

“That’s not fair. You took the worst of the worst, the losers and the rat-fuck crazies, and locked them at the shit-pit bottom of the universe. There was no way they were ever going to build anything but this.”

“That’s also Samael’s argument. You two are so much alike.”

“I’m not anything like Samael.”

Muninn leans forward in his chair.

“Really? Does that wound in your side hurt?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Of course it is.”

He looks at Candy.

“Samael walked around for millennia bleeding from a wound I gave him during the first Heavenly war. All he ever had to do was ask and I would have healed him.”

Candy gives me a look.

“That does sound familiar.”

“Samael and I aren’t anything alike.”

Muninn looks at Candy.

“He’ll bleed with that bullet in him until the end of time before he’ll ask for help.”

“What if I ask?” Candy says.

Muninn raises his eyebrows.

“Ah. Here’s someone unburdened by the sin of pride.”

“Don’t you dare,” I say to Candy.

“Too late,” says Muninn. “Here.”

He puts something in my hand. The bullet.

Candy leans over to look at it.

“And what do we say when someone magically heals us?”

“I didn’t ask him to.”

She smiles at Muninn.

“He says, ‘Thank you very much, Mr. Muninn.’ ”

“I hope you’ll forgive me for snatching away your martyrdom, James,” Muninn says.

“That’s okay. You I can forgive but the idiot who put it in there and whoever he works for I don’t. Or his bastard brother.”

“Will you be seeing Wild Bill while you’re here?”

“Next visit. When I’m not on the clock.”

Candy holds out her hand.

“Can I have the bullet?”

“What, are you a crow all of a sudden? You want all the shiny things.”

“I wanted the money clip because it was pretty. I want the bullet because you’re going to conveniently lose it somewhere and I want to keep it.”

“What for?”

“Who knows? Maybe when you get shot again I’ll make you cuff links.”

“For all the times I wear dress shirts.”

Dress shirts. Clothes. The bullet in my gut. I almost forgot the whole reason I came down here in the first place.

“Mr. Muninn, I’m looking for a new damned soul. His name is Trevor Moseley. Is there any way I can find him?”

“You say he’s new down here?”

Muninn shakes his head.

“I’m afraid our intake procedures aren’t what they should be. Why do you want to speak to him?”

“I want to know why he was so happy to walk in front of a bus.”

“That is unusual. I can put out a notice for him and let you know when he pops up on my radar.”

“Thanks. I’d appreciate it. We should go. We’ve taken up enough of your time.”

Muninn gets up.

“I’m sorry I raised my voice.”

“Don’t apologize. I probably deserved it.”

“You did,” says Candy.

“Feel free to come or go through any of the shadows in here,” says Muninn. “I don’t think you’ll be wanting to take the long way next time.”

“Not even a little. See you around, Mr. Muninn.”

“It was nice meeting you,” says Candy.

“Good-bye, my dear. I hope we meet again.”

“Me too.”

I pull Candy through a shadow and a wave of nausea and we come out in the living room in the Chateau.

Kasabian looks up from his computer.

“Where have you two been? You smell like something a dead raccoon horked up.”

I look at Candy.

“Told you so.”

“WHO ARE YOU calling?” says Candy.

I’m dripping on the carpet and she’s still toweling off from the shower. I’m turned away dialing the phone so she doesn’t have to look at the new scar I picked up from Garrett’s lucky shot.

I say, “Manimal Mike. He might know who made the fake 8 Ball.”

She comes out of the bathroom, takes the phone from my hand, and tosses it on the bed.

“Stop it,” she says.

“Why?”

“Because you just got shot. Because you just got blown up and we just came back from Hell.”

“I had a donut this morning.”

“See? I didn’t know that.”

“You were sitting right there.”

“I wasn’t paying attention.”