The Getaway God (34 page)

“She's fine. Don't be such a jellyfish and get over here.”

He puts down the chow mein and comes over. I put her arm around his shoulders. Candy smiles at us.

“Do-­si-­do, boys.”

I aim them at the stairs.

“Take her to our room. She'll show you where my guns are. If anyone but me tries to get in, shoot them.”

Kasabian says, “I don't know anything about guns.”

“You point the hole at the bad guys,” says Candy.

“Just take her upstairs and stay with her.”

Candy blows me a kiss as I head out.

“Bring me some ice cream when you come back.”

“L.A. is closed, dear. There isn't any ice cream.”

“Then bring me a kitten.”

“Kittens aren't ice cream.”

“Oh. Then bring me some ice cream.”

“You got it.”

Kasabian steers her up the stairs.

 

B
ACK AT
V
IGIL
headquarters things are settling down. Agents are cleaning up the wreckage from the earthquake. Rain still pours through the hole in the roof. It's gotten worse since I was gone.

I head for the Shonin's lab.

The door is off the hinges and a ­couple of agents stand guard. They stop me when I try to go in.

“Shonin. It's Stark.”

“Is your belly too big to fit through the door, tubby? Come in here.”

The agents give me a look that tells me I won't get on the group insurance plan anytime soon. I go into the lab.

The Shonin is looking a little better than when I first found him. He's sitting upright in a desk chair holding a cup of tea. He sets it down when he sees me.

“Your friend. The young Jade. She's gone, isn't she?”

“Must have escaped in all the excitement.”

“Marshal Wells won't be pleased.”

“He's got his own problems.”

“Like me,” he says, waving around his crushed arm.

“A little while ago, you told me I was the 8 Ball's uncle. Is there some way we can use that?”

He picks up the teacup and studies it.

“You have something that the Angra need. And I don't mean the Qomrama.”

“I have a gun, a knife, and a video store. What the hell do they want with me?”

He sips the tea.

“Tell me about your old Hellion master, Azazel.”

“He bought and paid for me when I was still in the arena. I still had to fight sometimes, but from then on I also had to play slave boy to one of the most powerful Hellions Downtown.”

“You were his assassin.”

“Yeah. Mainly other upper-­crust Hellions. Anyone with pull. Anyone who pissed him off or got in his way.”

“His political enemies.”

“Right.”

“He told you this?”

“No. But it was obvious. I was only killing off other generals and blue bloods. Hellions that had Lucifer's ear. Hellions are like Sub Rosas. Heavy into social status. Azazel wanted to be number one. Right behind the boss himself.”

“And all the years you were killing for him you had the key to the Room of Thirteen Doors inside you. You could have escaped Hell at any time.”

“He told me that my old girlfriend Alice was safe as long as I stayed. Then she was dead and I knew he'd been lying. So I killed him, came home, and went after Mason. What's this got to do with anything?”

He tries to pick up the tea, but his hand is shaky. He bumps it and the cup lands on the floor.

“Shit,” he says.

“Don't cling to things,” I say. “That's Buddhism 101.”

“Fuck you, fatty. Talk to me about clinging when the last of your tea is gone.”

“Why do you care about Azazel?”

“The universe is a very big place,” he says. “Even Gods need roads to cross it. Do you understand?”

“What? The Angras need a good deal on a rental car? Let them join AAA.”

The Shonin tries to pick up his broken teacup. I get it for him.

He says, “Think about it. Thirteen Angra. Thirteen roads. Thirteen entrances and exits. Now does it make sense?”

“The Room of Thirteen Doors? The Angra want it?”

“The book implies that it was the Angra who built it. It's their crossroads. They lost control of the key when God, your friend Muninn and his ilk, banished them. In the long aeons since, the key ended up in Hell.”

“And then it ended up in me.”

The Shonin wipes his cup on his torn robes.

“I wonder if Azazel knew what the key really was.”

Things are falling into place. My whole past.

“I wouldn't be surprised. Hell, he might have started the whole Angra cult in Hell. He put the key in me to keep it from his enemies. Used to me to kill off all the Hellions who fought him on his plan to commit mass suicide.”

The Shonin looks at me with his big empty eye sockets.

“He invented you. He invented Sandman Slim to destroy the universe.”

I feel a little queasy inside, like when I was looking at Mason's game board.

“It would probably have worked if Mason hadn't killed Alice.”

“Now Mason has brought down the Angra to destroy us all. And he used you to do it. Quite a revenge.”

“Mason was right all along. He was the better magician.”

“That's all you have to say, fatty? No bluster? Nothing clever?”

“How do I stop it?”

He sets the teacup on the desk. There's a fine crack running from the lip to the base.

“Lock yourself in the Room and blow your brains out so no one else can use it. You can't stop the Angra from coming, but you can stop them from spreading across the universe.”

“As long as I can burn all of creation with the Mithras, I'm not offing myself.”

I look up at the rain coming down through the ceiling. The clouds open to reveal the stars beyond. The twinkly bastards look kind of ominous to me right now.

“On the other hand, your stupid idea gives me a good one.”

“Tell me,” says the Shonin.

“Later. If you eat all your vegetables. Right now I need all the protective wards and sealing charms you have.”

The Shonin waves a bony hand at me.

“Idiot. You can't seal the Room. You need it to fight the Angra. Or are you going to barricade yourself in and let the rest of us die?”

“Crawl back in your tomb, Imhotep. As long as Candy is alive, you assholes get to live. But I need something else now that Mason is dead.”

“What?”

“I stopped the 8 Ball from letting all the Angra in. That was a mistake. The only way to beat them is to get them here. How do I do it?”

“I won't help you do something that insane.”

I reach across him to the vials sitting on his desk.

“Fine. I'll drink the rest of your damned book. I hope it doesn't kill me before I find what I need.”

The Shonin reaches for the potions.

“Tell me your plan and maybe I'll help.”

I hold the bottles out of his reach.

“First you tell me: Who are you working for? The Vigil or the world?”

He looks at me.

“I didn't sit in a tomb for four hundred years to be a dog for bureaucrats. I work for the world.”

I give him back the vials and tell him my idea. He isn't happy, but he doesn't say no.

Another tremor shakes the building. ­People scream. Rubble shifts. I have to grab the Shonin and the book to keep them from falling on the floor. The lights go out.

I look up at the cracked ceiling. Lightning rips across the dark and something huge tears the sky open. Stars flutter and wink out. The sky around the rip is pitch black. It doesn't last long, but something like smoke and bones slips out of the breach before it reseals itself.

The lights come back on.

“You're with me on this?”

“Go. Do what you need to do,” says the Shonin.

With all the rubble around, there are plenty of nice shadows. I step through one and head Downtown.

I
COME OUT
by the elevators in Mr. Muninn's penthouse. Lucifer's penthouse. I'll always have a hard time thinking of him as the Devil. I should never have guilted him into taking the job. He's not cut out for it and now I might have to ask him to do something worse.

Chaya is by the big picture window watching the red rain fall. I clear my throat and he turns my way.

“How dare you break in here?”

“I didn't break in. Mr. Muninn said I could come in whenever I wanted.”

“Muninn. You don't even know his real name.”

“He goes by Muninn and that's good enough for me.”

“Not for me.”

Chaya sweeps his hand across the room and I'm Peter Pan doing a clumsy air pirouette, before slamming into the far wall and hanging there like a mounted moose head.

“I'd say this is what all you ungrateful mortals deserve, but you're not a mortal, are you? Still, you're good practice.”

My throat closes up. I try to get some air. Can't. The world shrinks to a very small dot and I can't believe that after all I've been through I'm going to die because some metaphysical buzzkill is having a tantrum.

I hear Muninn's voice.

“What's all the commotion?” Then, “Chaya. Put him down now.”

“I've had it with this one. Don't you see? Sooner or later he'll turn the Godeater on us.”

“Let him go.”

I know what's going on. I'm right on the edge of fainting, but Chaya wants me to enjoy every minute of this game, so he won't let me. Even when he crushes my windpipe and all the air goes, I'm still awake and pinned to the wall like a greasy garage pinup.

Muninn steps in front of his brother and slaps him. Chaya is surprised enough to drop my sorry bones on the carpet. Muninn makes a small gesture at me and air floods into my lungs. I take a long, cool breath of it. Even stinking Hellion air tastes good right now.

Chaya rubs his cheek, glaring at Muninn. If looks could kill, the Angra would have once less piece of God to deal with.

Muninn says, “Stark has had more than ample opportunity to turn on us and he hasn't done so.”

“He's a killer.”

“He's my friend.”

“Don't talk like that. It's disgusting and demeans us all.”

Muninn comes over and helps me get on my feet.

“Are you all right?”

“I could use a drink.”

Muninn pours me something from a decanter on the coffee table. I sniff the stuff. It smells good. Muninn must have snuck back to Earth and raided the cavern with all his hidden treasures. I can't blame him for being homesick. That's Hell all over. I swallow the drink. It tastes like good whiskey and honey and burns like an August wildfire all the way down my mangled throat.

“Feeling better?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Samael comes in wearing a silk bathrobe, like Cary Grant looking for Katharine Hepburn.

“I heard noise. Did I miss anything fun?”

I give him the finger. He looks at me slumped on the couch and Chaya's red face.

“I did. Damn.”

“Shut your mouth, child,” says Chaya to Samael. “You never did know your place.”

“My place? I'm quite comfortable in Hell, Father. You're the one who looks like a peacock in the Sahara.”

“Enough, you two,” says Muninn.

He takes the empty glass from my hand and sits down across from me.

“Why are you here, James?”

I cough a ­couple of times, trying to get my voice back.

“The Angra are on their way. Mason did the summoning ritual. I stopped it before he was done, but something still got through.”

Muninn turns and looks out the window.

“It had to happen. It was just a matter of time. Still, if we had a little longer maybe there's something else . . . I don't know. We'd be so much stronger if we could reunite with Ruach.”

“He'd rather die and see us dead first,” says Chaya.

I set down my glass.

“I might have a way to beat them, but it's going to cost someone big.”

“What's your idea?” Muninn says.

“The Angra want you dead and they want the Room. I can give them the second thing. Herd them in and seal it forever. The trick is getting them inside.”

“How will you do that?”

“Not me. One of you two. The Angra hate you. They'll follow you anywhere. One of you leads them into the Room and I seal it so no one gets out.”

That quiets everybody down. Samael looks at me. He isn't happy. I just told him that one of his dads has to die and he knows I'm right. I think the only other time I shut him up was that time I stabbed him. That was fun.

“You're asking us to commit suicide,” says Muninn.

“Technically, just one of you.”

“See?” Chaya says. “It's exactly what I told you. He wants us dead.”

“It's not what I want. If one of you big brains can figure out a better way to guarantee the Angra get in the Room, please tell me.”

“There might be an alternative,” says Samael.

“What's that?” says Muninn.

“Reunite. You fell apart because you couldn't bear the weight of all creation. Reunite now to save it.”

Muninn looks at Chaya and Chaya looks at Muninn. They can't stand each other.

“We would be stronger reunited, Chaya,” Muninn says. “Perhaps strong enough to convince Ruach to join us. Even force him if we have to.”

“We'll still be incomplete. Nefesh and Neshamah are dead.”

“The alternative is for one of us to die and we'd be weaker still.”

“I don't trust the Abomination. He is made of lies.”

“We should try.”

“I won't do it.”

“Yes. You will.”

Muninn lunges at his brother. Grabs him by the shoulders and pushes him into the wall hard enough that they leave a dent. Chaya grabs Muninn's arms and spins him around. Now he's against the wall and Chaya tries to push him away, but only succeeds in driving him farther into the drywall. Muninn hugs his brother, pulling Chaya's body onto his. Their bodies blur, like a camera going out of focus, then sharpening again. They're drained of color. Just a ­couple of round gray men settling a family squabble that's been festering for aeons. Muninn lays his hands on Chaya's face, and when he pulls them back, Chaya's skin comes with him, stretching like warm taffy. Chaya pushes away, but Muninn leans in like he wants to head-­butt his brother. Everywhere Muninn touches Chaya, they sink into each other. Chaya fights back, pulling away from Muninn so their half-­melted flesh rips and snaps. But each time he does, Muninn moves in again, and they sink into each other. They fall on the floor, a writhing gray mass of furious protoplasm.

Then it stops. The mass breaks apart. The two brothers lie sprawled on the carpet, each regaining his color. Muninn sits up first. He tries to talk, but he's out of breath.