Authors: Richard Kadrey
“Angels have daddy issues, too?”
You have no idea, Antenna Girl. The silver light inside her glows brightly.
I say, “You think I’m crazy. What else can you think? But being crazy doesn’t automatically mean I’m wrong. Stay in tonight and be safe. What have you got to lose? It’s one night. By tomorrow night, it’ll be done one way or another.”
“Are all angels as serious as you?”
“I’m sober and I think I just quit smoking. That’ll depress anyone, even an angel.”
“Please don’t tell me you’re vegan, too.”
“Even God isn’t vegan.”
“That’s a relief.”
She looks at me. The wheels are turning in her head. I can almost hear her thoughts, but not quite.
“Okay, Johnny Angel. Maybe I’ll order in Chinese tonight. How’s that?”
“Or you could pick some up on the way home. Don’t want to put the delivery guy in danger, right?”
“Fine. Go and tell Freddy I said to refill your coffee. The stuff you have is turning to paint varnish.”
“Take care of yourself, Janet.”
“How did you know my name is Janet?”
“You’re still wearing your name tag.”
She looks at her blouse. Unclips the tag.
“For a second I thought you were psychic.”
“No. I just like donuts.”
A helicopter shoots by overhead heading south toward the smoke.
Janet puts on the coat hanging over her arm, gives me a little wave, and leaves.
I
KNOCK ON
the apartment door at exactly eleven.
Tracy opens it and lets me in without a word. Fiona is by the kitchen counter, standing conspicuously close to the gun she held on Allegra and me that morning. I walk over to her.
“I’m not staying long, so if you’re going to use that, you might want to get started.”
She shakes her head.
“Go to Hell.”
She wants to stop me from taking Johnny. The Stark part
of me understands her wanting to protect someone she cares about. The not-Stark knows how easy it would be to kill her and Tracy and how simple it would be to justify. What are their silly lives worth versus a whole city? But it won’t come to that. They won’t try to stop me. The resignation is in their eyes and body postures. Their breathing. It’s hard for them. They’re both brave and they want to be heroic, but they know they’ve already lost. Johnny said he wants to go and they know I can take him. The gun is just a gesture. More for their benefit than mine. It’s something Stark would do. Use a prop and bluster to cover up for what he knows he can’t do.
“I’m ready to go.”
Johnny is standing by his door in clean sweats and sneakers. He has a wool skullcap pulled down almost to his eyebrows. He looks like an emo kid who went off his meds.
“You look good, Johnny. I’m glad you’re coming.”
“Me, too. I haven’t seen the Backbone since they took me out.”
“You remember the way?”
He laughs.
“I remember where Beverly Hills is. Do you have a car?”
“I can get us one.”
“Great.”
He turns to Fiona and Tracy.
“How do I look? Will I pass?”
“You look good, Johnny,” Fiona says. “Stick close to Stark, especially if there are people around. And don’t talk to anyone. If anything happens, you come right back here. Okay?”
Tracy looks at me.
“He hasn’t been outside without us since he’s been here. I don’t know if he’s ever been outside without one of his minders. You’ll take care of him, right?”
“We’re going to his territory, so he’ll be fine. In between here and there I’ll look after him.”
Tracy gets close and whispers.
“As far as I know, Johnny’s never seen one of his kind get put down. If you gut a zed in front of him, I don’t know how he’ll react.”
“I don’t think it’ll come to that. I’m getting better at talking to Drifters.”
“I hope so.”
I try to ignore them as they say their sappy good-byes. I look out the window and listen to corpses digging L.A. out from under our feet. Maybe we’ve been lied to all these years. The San Andreas Fault doesn’t exist. Maybe earthquakes are just the dead turning over in their sleep.
Johnny is next to me.
“Should we go?”
I nod.
“Sure.”
He follows me outside. A moment later the door closes and someone throws the dead bolt. I take Johnny downstairs and boost a Hummer parked in the lot by McQueen and Sons. Normally, I hate these suburban G.I. Joe land barges, but tonight seems like a good night to be surrounded by three tons of metal.
“Where to?”
He gives me an address on West Pico at the edge of Beverly
Hills. I pull out into traffic and head for the Jackal’s Backbone.
T
HE FIRES AREN’
T just to the south anymore. They’re spreading all over the city. LAPD chopper searchlights rip up the sky. I turn on the radio. It’s exactly what you’d expect at the end of the world. Panicky chatter about mass murder. Something new and bad running wild in the streets. Is it a CIA experiment gone wrong—super crack seeded into “undesirable” neighborhoods—or a new strain of Book of Revelation rabies? The freeways are bumper-to-bumper. Nothing’s moving. Just one big box-lunch buffet for flesh eaters. Cop cars and ambulances tear through the city like speed-freak banshees. I turn off the radio. People sprint through the traffic in ones and twos. Sometimes small groups. They aren’t going anywhere. They’re just running.
My cell rings. I know it’s Kasabian or Lucifer, so I don’t bother checking the ID.
“Where are you? Why aren’t you home?” comes a harsh voice.
“Doc?”
“No. It’s Jim Morrison’s ghost,” says Kinski. “Tell me you aren’t running around in that goddamn madness out there.”
“I’m not running around in the madness. I’m driving. Tell me you aren’t in L.A.”
“I could, but I’d be lying. Did you know there’s a head living in your closet? And it’s pretty pissed off.”
“That’s Kasabian. Be nice to him. He has a hard enough time just existing.”
“He’s doing fine. We were chatting about finding him a body so he doesn’t have to crawl around this room forever.”
“Where’s Candy?”
“She’s having a beer with the head. He’s telling stories about you. He’s a real cutup.”
“Why are you in town, doc? I told you to stay away.”
“Candy and I came back to drag your ass out of here. You can’t stop what’s coming. This isn’t about zombies or the Vigil or Lucifer. It’s about the city eating itself. This train’s been coming for a long time and you don’t want to be here when it crashes into the station.”
“Thanks, doc, but a dead buddy and me are on our way to the Jackal’s Backbone for drinks and a lap dance.”
“Dammit. If you go in there you’re never coming out. Do you understand that? You’ve been bit. You’re already halfway to becoming one of them. Come back and we’ll see what we can do for you.”
“You’re wrong and you’re wrong. I’ll come out of the Backbone and I’m going to stop whatever’s going on because whoever’s doing it has really pissed me off. You’re wrong about the other thing, too. I’m not turning zed. I’m turning into you. Stark’s going bye-bye. In another day or so, the angel part is all that’s going to be left.”
That shuts him up.
“Listen to me. You’ve got to stop whatever it is you think you’re doing and come back here right now. We can fix this and put you back like you were.”
“Why would I want that? Get Allegra and Vidocq out of town. If you can’t take Brigitte or Kasabian, then hide them someplace safe.”
He doesn’t say anything.
“Doc?”
“Hi, Stark.”
“Candy?”
“You need to come home. Kasabian and I are drinking all your beer.”
“Just remember to empty his bucket every bottle or two.”
“I’ve missed you.”
“Hobbies are a good way to forget your troubles. I’ve heard needlepoint is relaxing.”
“Doc says you’re sick.”
“No. I’ve
been
sick. Now I’m getting better. Soon I’ll be perfect.”
“Please come back.”
“I can’t. We’re here.”
I park across from the address Johnny gave me. We’re in front of a ten-story office building shaped like a cake box sitting on top of a shoe box. The only interesting thing about the place is that it doesn’t seem to have any windows.
I say, “Good-bye, Candy,” and hang up. Good-bye to everyone. Been nice knowing you.
Johnny leans over and stares up at the building, as curious as I am.
“Do you have a way in?”
“You got us the car. I thought you could do it.”
“You’re more awake than this morning.”
“Yes. Almost back to my old dead self. That snack you brought hit the spot.”
“You have a sweet tooth.”
“I have a sweet tooth.”
I look the building over, wondering about the best way in. I’ve never tried to take a dead man through the Room and this doesn’t seem like the right time to turn Einstein and run experiments.
“I guess you twenty-seven Drifters really are special. How did they put your soul back in when they made you a Savant?”
He shifts his gaze from the building to me.
“What do you mean?”
“I can see souls and you have one.”
I point at the ball of light behind his ribs.
“How did they put it back in after you died?”
“No one put it back. It never went anywhere. I told you before. The dead live in the Jackal’s Backbone. Everyone who’s ever died in L.A. is down there.”
“Right. I got that.”
“If everyone is down there, where else would their souls be? What’s the use of holding on to the bodies if you don’t have the souls? The Backbone is here because L.A. is a power spot. We’re here because it needs to be fed.”
“It feeds on the souls.”
“That’s what I said.”
“What happens to the souls when the city sucks them dry?”
He shrugs.
“They’re gone. Poof. Dust in the wind.”
“I’ll get us inside.”
I gun the Hummer, crank the wheel, and hit the gas. The Hummer blasts over the curb and up the stone stairs, and smashes through the glass front doors. Yeah, I just set off a
shitload of alarms, but LAPD has more to do tonight than check out a B&E. Johnny gets out of the Hummer with his big kid grin plastered across his face.
“Cool.”
“You lead the way from here.”
We go through an atrium and paneled doors that look like they lead to business offices. But it’s not offices on the other side. It’s machinery. The interior of the building is hollow and it’s full of generators and pipes. Huge fucking pipes that come out of the ground and twist around each other like Gigantor’s intestines.
“Where the hell are we?”
Johnny’s smile grows wider.
“In the pumping station. Right over the Backbone.”
“What’s it pump?”
“Oil. I looked it up. This is the largest station, but there’s ninety-seven active wells in this field pumping almost a million barrels a year. One of them is right by the football field at Beverly Hills High School.”
“I’ll call my broker when we get back. Take me to where the dead people are.”
“Sure.”
He takes us down a couple of levels to the bottom of the place. The stairs and railings are splattered with dried blood. There are bones and shredded clothes on the catwalk above us.
The oil pumps must either be buried deep or soundproofed well. I can feel the machinery through the soles of my feet, but it’s quieter on the bottom level. On the other hand, it smells a lot worse. Probably it’s all the zombies.
It’s like the shift change at Grand Central Dead Guy Terminal. Drifters wander in from every direction. They come out of offices and maintenance rooms. From behind machinery. Lacunas, a little more agile than your regular shamblers, climb up pipes dug deep into the ground. The Drifters shoulder their way up a ramp to a big room at the top. A loading dock. The steel doors are shredded and Drifters pour out into the streets.
None of them even look at Johnny. They don’t rush over to rip me apart, but I get checked out every now and then. One stops. Bares its teeth and moans. I hold the belt buckle tighter and say, “Keep moving,” and it does.
“That’s a nice trick,” says Johnny.
“Thanks. Later I’m going to make balloon animals. Let’s keep moving.”
“The fastest way is down the pipes.”
“Is there another way? I like to see what I’m walking into so I can strategically run away if it looks too meat grinderish.”
“Sure. You can see where I came out.”
I get out the Smith & Wesson and follow him into what looks like the shift boss’s office. There’s a bank of video monitors and a lit-up layout of the place on the wall. A desk in the middle of the room is covered with papers stiff with dried blood. It must have come from the pile of bone and gristle on the floor. I guess we found the shift boss. It looks like he was following safety procedures and had his hard hat on when was eaten. Good news for the company. At least their insurance rates won’t go up.
“Here,” says Johnny.
He’s by a filing cabinet that’s been moved a couple of feet away from the wall. There’s a hole in the floor. I stay where I am, waiting to see if anything decides to crawl out. When nothing appears, I go over and push the cabinet out of the way. Johnny politely stands aside and waits for me.
“No fucking way I’m going first. You walk point, Lazarus.”
Johnny nods, bends over, and drops down into the hole. I don’t want to follow, but I do it anyway. Brigitte needs whatever might be down there. And if Alice is here, well, I’ll deal with that when and if I find her. But if she is here, it means that from here on out, everyone I have to kill is going to die at half speed so they remember it when they wake up in the Backbone.
There are no lights in the tunnel. It’s dark enough that I shouldn’t be able to see, but I can. Every swirling electron cloud around every atom of every object in the Backbone gives off a dim neon glow. And there’s a hell of a lot of atoms down here. The walls are lit up like New Year’s in Time Square. Even the Drifters are made of light. Ugly, smelly, decayed, dry-bone, flesh-hungry light. I hold the buckle and send out a general “be like the Red Sea and split” message and they move out of the way.
I haven’t been a hundred percent sold on the whole “we’re the magic twenty-seven” thing, but I’m becoming a believer. People pull the new Savants out of the Backbone and there’s definitely been a lot of human traffic down through the place. The walls are covered with hoodoo symbols and bone murals. Not something these brain-dead maggot factories could pull off.