Killing Pretty (35 page)

Over on Mission Road, I hunker down behind a lamppost and wait. I've been waiting all day. What's a little more wasted time between friends?

It's seven thirty when I sit down with a Malediction. It's nine when I spot the first Golden Vigil vans and Humvees coming across the bridge. I even have a cigarette left. That has to be a good omen.

There's a slight breeze blowing down off the river channel. It smells like exhaust and ashes. A ­couple of rats run ahead of me down the road. I'm still a football field away from the warehouse, but don't want to be seen by White Light shitheads or the Vigil, so I take a step to the right, into the hurricane, and make the walk backstage the whole way.

The smell coming off the river is more intense in the storm wind. Strange tattered things blow by, grab at my legs. The walk down the road feels like I'm climbing a mountain with a pickup truck on my back. I swear the hurricane is stronger out here, maybe because of all the baleful magic at the warehouse. By the time I get to the White Light's parking lot, I'm exhausted. My chest hurts and it's hard to breathe. But I still have a long way to go.

It took me longer than I thought to get up the road. The first Vigil cops are already in the fight club and more pour in ultra–slow motion from the vans, moving like ants in liquid amber. Civilians sprint out of the club—­­couples, bikers, mean-­eyed blue bloods. They scramble out the door, frozen in place like snapshots of pants-­wetting fear. Getting inside the club is like swimming upstream through human-­size salmon, all going the other way.

Guns are going off all over the place. Skinheads pop off shots at the Vigil; each muzzle flash is an orchid of fire. The Vigil's nonlethal rounds move almost imperceptibly. Flashbang grenades explode like glacial fireworks. Beanbag rounds hang in the air, turning slowly like fat fist-­size wasps. Looking over at the fight ring, I wonder if the ghosts can see me. The current bout features two men with barbed-­wire-­wrapped ax handles. Both ghosts are covered in bloody ectoplasm. One of the fighters wears a Lucha Libre mask. I swear his eyes follow me as I move around the frozen patrons.

The stairs are completely blocked by more White Light bully boys and panicked civilians. It's too packed to push through them. I have to climb on the outside of the stairs, holding on to the handrail, moving up one toehold at a time. It feels like forever getting up there. My legs shake and I'm sweating more than I should be. This backstage world feels like it's getting harder on me each time I enter it. Maybe I should have hung back and let the Vigil do the heavy lifting. But I can't risk them stumbling across Vincent's heart. It won't take them long to figure out that I lied about its location, but by then I'll be long gone.

When I make it up the stairs, I climb over the railing and head into the snuff room. I'm not careful with ­people anymore. I shove goddamn civilians and White Lights out of my way. Their legs tangle and heads butt against each other, or they will eventually. They fall and smash into each other a millimeter at a time.

The scene on the killing floor is the usual horror. A muscled guy in tighty whities I recognize from a series of forgettable straight-­to-­video martial-­arts movies is running with a chain saw aimed at the head of a singer I can't quite recall. From his hair and clothes, he might be a one-­hit-­wonder hippie from the sixties who sang a song about flying horses. Maybe. They're both ghosts and I can't move them around like I can the civilians, but I can change the fight. The chair the singer is tied to is real enough, so I drag it a few feet to the side. If Mr. Martial Arts isn't hexed into staying on the fighting floor, he might just stumble out of the ring and into the crowd. I'm not exactly looking for him to saw anyone's head off, just maybe give a few patrons a taste of what they've been getting off on.

I go around the room testing the curtains that cover the walls, looking for the
Gruppenführer
's office. The curtain fabric feels both stiff and gelatinous. My hand finally lands on a doorknob. I push the curtain aside and try to go in, but the door is locked. I get out the na'at and extend it into a sword, slice the lock off the door. When I kick the pieces out of the way they hang in the air like slow confetti.

The light is on inside the office. Cheap, dark paneling, like the inside of a trailer. A gray metal desk. An enormous Nazi flag that covers one wall, with a bookcase right across from it. There's a glass-­front gun cabinet against one wall. I'll have to inspect that before leaving. I'm feeling pretty nauseous now. I close the office door and step left, coming out of the hurricane.

Tykho was right. There's a canopic jar covered in Nordic runes on a top shelf of the bookcase right next to a shot of their mustached dear leader and his squeeze. Another photo sits right below them. A battered, faded photo of Sigrun back in her Thule Society prime. Young blond Aryan perfection. Is this what Tykho was talking about? Is this trailer-­park Colonel Klink trying to muscle her into some kind of liaison? Blackmailing a vampire is a questionable move, but blackmailing Tykho seems like an idea sure to get you drawn and quartered. I guess having Death on your side gave the Nazi fuck giraffe-­size balls. I smash the frame and take out Tykho's photo, stuff it in my pocket. I also grab a Luger with an ivory grip off another shelf and a Bowie knife, stuff them all in my pockets too.

Another wave of nausea hits. I need to sit down, so I set the jar on the desk and drop in the
Gruppenführer
's chair. And start going through his drawers. Jackpot in the first one. I stuff more baubles in my pockets.

I take a bronze bust of Adolf's head from his desk and toss it through the front of the gun cabinet. Push away the glass and start piling weapons on the desk.

The door slams open and shut behind me. I turn around and lock eyes with a guy in a bloody White Light uniform. It isn't like the others I've seen. His is cut better and has some kind of insignia on the shoulders and breast pocket. We stare at each other for a second, Colonel Klink is as surprised to see me as I am to see him. He sees the guns and the canopic jar on the desk and pulls a pistol from its holster.

I don't have time to go for the Colt, so I grab a Benelli shotgun from the pile of guns on the desk and hope it's loaded.

It is. The sound of the gun going off in such a small space is like getting whacked with hammers on both sides of your head. But I miss and it only stops Klink for a second. He blasts away with his 9mm and a shot catches my upper right arm. My right side goes instantly numb, but I fire away as another slug grazes my leg. I fall back against the wall as Klink's chest explodes, a ­couple of loads of double-­ought buckshot catching him just below his throat.

I lean against the wall and slide down, leaving a red streak behind me. Nausea mixes with the numbness, trying to convince my body to lie down and not move for a ­couple of weeks. But my brain is on high alert. There's a better than even chance someone outside heard the shots. I don't want the Vigil catching me here, especially with a ventilated Nazi and my pockets stuffed with his bric-­a-­brac. I get up and step right.

The hurricane hits and blows my dumb ass down again. Getting hold of the desk, I pull myself up. The canopic jar goes under my good arm. I look at the pile of guns. What a waste. Some stupid feds are going to get most of them when they'd look so much nicer decorating my hotel room. I try to pick up a few with my injured arm, but it refuses to work right. Using my left arm and a lot of wiggling, I get the Benelli's sling over my shoulders so I can haul it out without holding it.

Strange light shines through the shot-­up Nazi flag. I go over and look through the holes. And can see the river and railroad yard. I put down the jar and pull the flag down. There's a door in the wall, Klink's private emergency exit. It's probably what he was going for when he came in. I can't quite swing the Benelli around, so I bark some Hellion hoodoo. Part of the door explodes, splinters and metal spinning away languidly into the dark.

Getting down the stairs with a jar, a shotgun, a bad arm, and a goddamn bleeding leg isn't easy, but it's better than navigating the rat trap back in the club.

When I get around the front of the warehouse, more Vigil vans have pulled up. It's D-­Day over here. Have a fun night, boys and girls. Bust everyone and don't be too mad when you don't find anything under the fight ring. It's nothing personal. It's just that I don't trust anything you say or do. I'd rather be shot up with the heart under my arm than Schwarzenegger-­perfect beefcake without it.

The walk back to the Crown Vic is longer than it took to build the Pyramids. I stop at one point, lean against a stalled Mercedes and tear off part of my shirt, wrap it around my bleeding leg. That takes another century since I'm working with one good arm and another that's as numb as bologna. When I start off again, I'm no longer leaving a trail of blood behind me so the Vigil can follow, maybe get some DNA samples. With luck, all the traffic tearing along the road will rub out most of the blood I already left behind.

When I make it to the car, I'm shaking, ready to puke up the entire menu of the Last Supper. The tightness in my chest is back, but at least something interesting happened. There's a nice scorch mark around the Crown Vic where someone tried to break in and got a hotfoot for their trouble. That puts a smile on my face.

Stepping left, I come out of the hurricane. And almost fall over again.

I get the Crown Vic's passenger door open and wrap the canopic jar in a seat belt. Don't want Vincent's heart slip-­sliding around the car if we hit any red lights. I wrestle my coat off and toss it on top of the shotgun in the backseat. Then I drag my ass behind the wheel of the car.

Usually getting shot doesn't take this much out of me. I don't ever want to go backstage with a bullet in my arm again. I have to start the car with my left hand and mostly drive home to Hollywood that way. I take surface streets. It's longer getting back, but there's less chance of me taking a gimpy turn and driving off an overpass.

There's a parking space near the Museum of Death, so I take it. It's a metered spot, but all my change is in my right pocket. Looks like Julie is going to get a parking ticket in the mail. Fuck it. Let her take it out of my next paycheck.

I hump the jar and the rest of the loot, still wrapped in my coat, across to the hotel. I can't reach my keys, so I kick the door to our room a few times. Candy opens up and turns sideways. Or maybe it's me turning sideways. Someone is definitely moving at a funny angle. I decide it's me when something slams into my nose and I get a faceful of hotel carpet. I want to explain what happened, but when I open my mouth, all that comes out is “Who was the guy who sang the flying horse song?”

W
HEN
I
COME
to, I'm in bed and everyone is staring at me strangely, like I'm the Fiji mermaid in spats.

My right arm and leg are wrapped in fresh bandages. I can smell one of Allegra's healing potions through the bandages. She's taking my pulse. Vidocq is behind her. Kasabian and Vincent are behind him and Candy is at the foot of the bed.

“I had the strangest dream,” I say. “And you and you and you were there.”

“Shut up, Dorothy,” says Candy. “You weren't supposed to get shot tonight. You were supposed to watch Tamerlan and come home.”

“I
was
watching him. Then some crazy Nazi started shooting at me.”

“No wonder, with all the junk we found in your pockets. What, you couldn't fit his refrigerator in there?”

“Did you find the present I got you? Brass knuckles.”

“Did you look at them? The knuckles have swastikas on them. I don't want them.”

“Damn. I missed that.”

“What's in that big jar?”

I look around for Vincent. He's next to Kasabian.

“I found your heart.”

“You did? You mean Townsend's heart.”

“It doesn't matter whose heart it is. It's how they bound you. If we put it back, you'll be your old self again.”

“How do we put it back?”

“How did they take it out?”

“Oh,” he says.

“You can't be serious,” says Allegra. “You can't just cut him open and start shoving organs inside.”

“I can't. But you can.”

“Forget it.”

“Listen, if we don't get rid of McCarthy by dawn, the White Lights will own death. They'll decide who lives and who dies and when. It's the ultimate racket.”

“Are you sure about this?” says Vidocq.

“Yes. We don't have long to fix things. What time is it?”

“A little after three,” says Candy.

“Dawn is only a few hours off. We can't fuck around arguing. Vincent, are you ready for this?”

He has a hand on his chest.

“Yes. I want to go back.”

Allegra shakes her head.

“This is ridiculous. I won't do it.”

I sit up. The room spins, but I don't fall over. I'm pretty hard to kill, and heal quicker than a civilian. I test my right arm. It straightens out about three-­quarters of the way. It hurts, but I don't pass out. I try raising it and get it as far as my shoulder.

I say, “If you won't do it, I will. Come on, Vincent. This is probably going to be messy. Why don't you get in the bathtub?”

He sighs.

“All right. Will it hurt?”

“The bathtub? No. It'll be cold.”

“No. The cutting.”

“Did it hurt when you woke up with your heart gone?”

“No. I simply felt . . . disembodied. As if I was in Townsend and somewhere else at the same time.”

“There you go. This is going to be a breeze.”

“Stop it. Both of you,” says Allegra.

She looks at Vincent.

“You can't let this idiot hack you open.”

She turns to me.