Devil Said Bang (41 page)

She spits at him. Traven leans in like he’s going
to kiss her. Black vapor and dust stream from his mouth into hers. I watch with
Lucifer’s eyes, as her skin, already stained black with sin signs, turns wet and
sloppy like she’s been dipped in hot tar. Her body sags. Traven has to hold her
up to continue the Dolorosa.

“Enough” is all I can get out. Traven stops. I’ve
never seen that look of fury on his face before. It’s happened. He wanted to do
more and he walked into the belly of the beast. Ghouls. Jabbers. Murderers and
hit men. All in a day. The good man that came in the house is gone. The man I’m
looking at is still good but in an angry, wounded way that matches Traven’s
lined soldier’s face.

Traven looks to where Lula slid down the wall into
a sitting position. She’s unconscious and twitching. Eyes rolled back and
breathing hoarse as her body tries to absorb the Dolorosa poison.

I whisper, “Help me.”

That wakes Traven up. He looks at me in a dazed
way. Recognizes what’s happened and flips through all the books in his head. He
takes the knife from inside my coat and slits the canvas, ripping out a piece to
break the circle. Suddenly I can take a decent breath. I can even stand. Slowly.
I spit blood and go to where Traven is bent over Candy.

I collapse onto my knees next to her body.

“She’s alive,” Traven says. “But the other woman. I
think I might have killed her.”

“Who cares? Dead now or dead later. Either way
she’s hellbound.”

He looks at me with a mixture of sorrow and shame.
The preacher inside is still hanging on by his fingernails. Traven understands
damning someone but not being an executioner. Maybe later I’ll tell him that the
first one is always the hardest. Maybe not.

“Do you know how to do mouth-to-mouth?”

“Yes,” he says. “The Red Cross came to the
seminary.”

“Get her to the car and do what you can. She’s just
paralyzed now but we don’t want any brain damage, do we?”

“No.”

“Get her out of here.”

Traven nods. Picks Candy up in his arms and runs
with her through the cursed rain.

I go to the hole and look inside. Lula plugged
Teddy five or six times. There are lots of bone fragments in the dirt. She hit
Cherry too.

I shouldn’t do what I’m doing but I’m still doing
it. I pick up the Imp’s skull and throw it on the floor as hard as I can. The
marble cracks and the skull explodes into a thousand pieces, destroying Lamia’s
connection to this world. I don’t have to kill her. She was never really
responsible for what she did. She was a slave killing for a sick bastard. I did
plenty of that in Hell. With any luck, she’ll be just another ghost in the
Tenebrae now. Maybe she’ll be strong enough to squeeze out whatever hole she
came through and go home to the Angra. Who knows, maybe freeing her will buy
humanity some brownie points when the Angra come back to eat our lunch. They can
keep us around like sea monkeys and teach us tricks. Why not? One God fucked
with us at the beginning of time. What’s one more?

I pick up the jerry can and spread gasoline all
over the floor. Before I light it, I find the kitchen and rip all the gas hoses
out of the walls. I go outside and light a Malediction, letting the house fill
with fumes. When I’m halfway through the smoke, I open the front door and toss
it inside. The house catches. Windows blow out, sending burning debris onto the
perfect lawn. Traven starts the car. The flames light our way down the long
hill.

Good-bye, Teddy. So long, Lula. I hope Lamia and
the ghosts of those kids don’t let your souls get to the afterlife too quick. I
hope they give you a good long tour of the Tenebrae. Welcome to the Hell you
made, assholes.

B
y the
time we hit Hollywood, the sky has stopped puking ocean down on our heads. The
streets are choked with dying fish and colorful stones. I don’t think there’s a
car windshield or store window left intact anywhere in Southern California.
Traven steers around the worst of it as well as he can with a cracked
windshield, heading for Allegra’s clinic.

“I thought you had a falling-out with the woman who
runs the clinic.”

“Allegra might be pissed but she won’t let anything
happen to Candy.”

Traven carries her out of the car while I pound on
the clinic door until they open it. Fairuza looks out and lets Traven inside. I
stay in the parking lot.

Traven comes out a few minutes later.

“They say it’s a common drug. She’ll be fine,” he
says.

“Thanks.”

“What happens now?”

“You mean what does a person do after car chases,
arson, and their first kill?”

Traven looks out into the street. Some of the fish
are still alive, gasping for breath on the sidewalk. He’d like to save every one
of them.

“Even if you’re in the right, how do you cope with
it?”

I shrug. It hurts.

“Drinking helps.”

He looks at himself in the clinic windows. I know
the move. He’s checking to see if he’s still him.

“You jumped on a flying saucer today, Father.
You’re on a whole other planet now.”

“That’s exactly how it feels.”

“There’s no going back. You know that, don’t you?
You can’t unsee or unknow any of this.”

“I wouldn’t if I could. I didn’t just translate
books because I had an aptitude for it. I did it hoping that one or two might
reveal some deeper truth. That somehow my work would benefit people. These last
few days . . .”

“I know. Truth can kick your ass. You know the
Greek word for ‘revelation,’ right?”

“Apokálypsis.”

“Apocalypse. The truth shall set you free, but not
before blowing your brain to Rice Krispie Treats.”

“Would you like to get a drink?”

“Yeah. But tomorrow. I have one more stop to make
before this thing is over.”

“Are you going after Aelita?”

“No. She’ll be long gone with the 8 Ball. I’m
seeing someone who owes me a favor.”

“Do you want some company?”

“This one I have to do on my own. But I’d be
grateful for a ride back to the Chateau.”

The Metro’s windshield is too far gone. Traven and
I kick it out of the frame and throw it in a Dumpster at the back of the lot. We
don’t talk on the ride across town. My chest hurts like I was hit by a cruise
missile, but I’m not spitting up blood. Kasabian is asleep on the couch when I
get back. A big metal dog curled up and surrounded by beer cans. I lie down and
nap in bed for a couple of hours. When I wake up, I change clothes, get on the
Hellion hog, and head downtown.

T
he
Bradbury Building is an Art Deco beauty in one of the amnesic parts of town that
can’t remember whether it wanted to be a neighborhood or a tourist wasteland and
now isn’t quite either. Once upon a time I killed a vampire named Eleanor near
here. Her family was the one I locked in the Chateau Marmont with a roomful of
zombies. Now I’m back here again, not starting trouble but trying to end it.

I park the bike on a pile of dead fish. The sky
flickers like a lightning storm but there’s no thunder.

The Bradbury Building is closed up tight but I
jimmy the lock with the black blade. Silent motion-sensor alarms will go off the
moment I’m inside. I’m sure the cops will rush right over after they dig out
their squad cars from under all the rocks and carp. Even if they come, they’ll
never find me where I’m going.

I get in one of the ornate wrought-iron elevators
and press the buttons for the first and third floors simultaneously. The
elevator rises to the thirteenth floor in a building that only has five.

I get out and walk to Mr. Muninn’s antiques shop.
The door is unlocked. Go through the store, out the back exit, and down hundreds
of feet of bare stone steps into a cavern below the city.

“Mr. Muninn!” I yell. “Olly olly oxen free.”

Mr. Muninn comes out from behind a Russian
icon-style portrait of a king from a country that hasn’t existed for two ice
ages.

“I didn’t expect you to come in that way. I’m so
used to you appearing out of the shadows.”

“That’s Saint James’s trick these days. I just
break into buildings and ride the Wonkavator to places that aren’t there.”

“It sounds like more fun when you say it.”

Muninn’s cavern is maybe the biggest antiques shop,
curiosity cabinet, and junkyard in the universe. Shelves and tables sag under
his crazy trinkets. Helmets and ancient weapons enough to take on Hannibal.
Acres of old coins and endless galleries of paintings, jewelry, potions,
karakuri,
and old books. Piles of what look like
dinosaur bones beside a moored zeppelin. Like a raven, he’s been plucking shiny
pieces of this and that and hiding them in his lair for aeons. Maybe that’s why
he goes by a raven’s name.

“I thought you might come to see me before
this.”

“That was the plan but there was this ancient god
and a whole Apocalypse thing happening. Maybe you heard about it.”

“I wouldn’t worry. You saved the dreamers. In a few
days, they’ll take control of reality from the safety of their slumber and the
sky will be blue and the world will be made beautiful again.”

“Make that brown skies, panhandlers, and things
getting back to passable and I’ll believe you.”

“Always the optimist.”

I lean on a table and knock over piles of
Confederate money.

“Sorry.” Then, “You lied to me, Mr. Muninn. This
whole time. And I trusted you.”

“I know. And I have no excuses, just an
explanation. I was afraid. To break down from one mind to five is troubling
enough but then my own brother, Ruach, let Aelita kill brother Neshamah to save
himself. It was too much to take. I don’t even know where my other two brothers
are.”

He picks up a pile of gold Minoan coins and tosses
them through the eye socket of a pterodactyl skull. A nervous tic.

“I’ve been down here and away from family squabbles
since the world was young and I had hoped to stay here for eternity. But that’s
not going to happen, is it?”

I shrug.

“That all depends on you. You asked me to take the
singularity to one of your brothers in Hell. You said you’d owe me a favor. I
made the delivery and now I’m calling in the favor. That’s if you’re willing to
keep your part of the bargain.”

“Do you have the singularity with you?”

“No. It’s somewhere safe. I’ll keep it for now. If
I get bored, maybe I’ll start a new universe, just like the Angra Om Ya.”

“I know Father Traven told you the story. Would you
like to hear my side of it?”

“Yes. But not right this minute. I took some
bullets today, and don’t tell anyone, but they still hurt.”

“Would you like me to take them out for you?”

“Sure. Later. Right now I want to get the other
thing settled. Are you willing to do me the favor you promised?”

“Yes.”

“I think you know what it is.”

“I suspect so.”

I walk over to him, passing a table piled with old
Hollywood head shots and shattered pieces of the Druj Ammun seal.

“I don’t care if you didn’t really create the
universe. You still made the souls. There are a lot of them Downtown that could
use someone to keep an eye on them better than Hellions can. The Hellions aren’t
doing all that well themselves. They’re killing each other when they aren’t
killing themselves. Hellions are your children too, right? They can both use the
kind of help a half-assed Lucifer like me can’t give them.”

“And you think I have the right experience to be
Lucifer? I’m not sure if I should be flattered or hurt.”

“You’re a deity. At least you have something to
work from. I was just playing free jazz. You really need to take the job. If I
go back to Hell, I’ll never leave and Hell will burn without a Lucifer.”

He looks away and throws the last of the coins in
the air. They hang there before falling on the table in a neat stack.

“Of course I’ll go. A bargain is a bargain. But you
must do something for me first.”

“What?”

“Forgive the part of you you call Saint James.”

“Forget it. He’s a useless Pat Boone twerp with a
bad case of poor poor pitiful me. I’m always the bad guy and he’s always the
victim. Forget it. He left. He can stay left.”

“Are you sure that’s how you want it?”

“I have the armor. I don’t need him.”

“But you just appointed me Lucifer. The armor is
mine.”

I hadn’t thought of that.

“He left. I don’t beg favors.”

“You don’t have to. Just tell me, would you like to
be whole and complete again?”

“Are you God or Dear Abby?”

“You’re avoiding the question because the answer is
yes and you’re too proud and hurt to say it.”

“Bullshit.”

“You can’t lie to me, James. I’m God.”

“Fine. Sure. I’d like to be one big slice of apple
pie but I’m not kissing Saint James’s ass.”

“You don’t have to. While you were talking I
reintegrated you.”

I look at my hands.

“Bullshit. If he was back in my head, he’d be
screaming. I don’t feel any different.”

“Which is exactly as it should be. When you’re
whole, it’s not necessary to think about yourself as whole. You simply are.”

“Cool it with the koans. Wild Bill is my Buddhism
adviser.”

I look at myself in an old mirrored shield.

“I don’t know how I feel about this.”

“Of course you do. You’re angry. You’re always
angry with me. God tricked you again. But let me remind you of something. I
still am God and there are certain things I can and will do for the good of my
children, including you. You’re whole because it’s necessary for you to be whole
and there’s nothing you or Lucifer or Sandman Slim can do about it.”

“See? You do have the right attitude to be a good
Lucifer.”

Mr. Muninn walks to an old L.A. Red Car and steps
inside.