Devil Said Bang

Bill is right about one thing. I have plenty to deal with right now. I know his advice makes sense because it’s what Alice would have said. She was always the smart one. Pick and choose the skulls you crack and when you do it. No skulls for me tonight, thank you very kindly. I’m as cool as a cat napping on a pint of Rocky Road. At the corner I’ll head back for the bike.

I keep seeing red leggers in the crowd. That’s new. No way raiders could be strolling around Pandemonium right out in the open without someone getting paid off. I should come down here more often. It’s like a parade of the city’s sins. Kind of like every boutique on Rodeo Drive.

I take another pull from the bottle. I’ve already killed half of it.

This bottle and no more. Cross my heart.

If Semyazah has turned into Scarface, that’s bad news. I need him to keep a lid on things. And to help keep me alive. I have to find out who’s trying to off me or I have to find a way out of here, and I have a bad feeling I’m going to have to do the first before I do the second. If Saint James was here, he’d know what was going on by now. He handles the Mike Hammer stuff and he’s not bad at it. Me, I need crib notes and blueprints to make ice.

I go around the corner and head back for where I left the bike. All of a sudden I feel wobbly on my feet. That Aqua Regia was stronger than I thought. I’ll have to order some for the palace.

I bounce off a hawker’s table. Stepping back, I hold up my hands in apology as the guy calls me an asshole fifty different ways. Hellion might be a simple language, but it can be colorful.

The last thing I want tonight is trouble, so I toss the rest of the Aqua Regia at an oil drum full of trash. And miss. The next thing I hear is someone shouting.

I know that tone. I look over at him. If I stay, there’s going to be boots and fists. If I run, I’m going to have six red leggers after me. Not exactly low profile. He and his buddies are headed this way. Basically, I have two options that add up to no options.

Sorry, Bill, but I wasn’t the one who let you down. It was the Aqua Regia.

The offended legger is a head taller than me, built long and brawny. His friends are behind him. Dirty faces. Filthy clothes. Country boys who just rolled into town and are seeing the sights when a big-city drunk practically pees on their legs. No way they’re going to be at all cool about this.

Still. I say, “Sorry. My fault. I can probably find someone to clean them for you.”

If looks could kill, I’d be one grave over from Gabby Hayes right now.

The legger looks at his liquored boots and then at me.

He says, “Keep your money. Come over here and clean them yourself. With your tongue.”

His friends laugh. I don’t like leggers at the best of times, and this is not one of those.

Behind him is a squat legger with a soft fish face and eye patch.

“I would, but it would just make your girlfriend over there jealous.”

Damn. Did I say that out loud? Maybe some of these fights are my fault after all.

The expression on Dirty Boots’ face lets me know he’s exactly dumb enough to get bent out of shape by such an obvious bait line. I know what’s going to happen next but now I know that these are just infantry blockheads and not ninjas in disguise.

The trick in this kind of situation is to move first and keep moving no matter what. They’ll think you’re crazy and hold back maybe long enough for you to get away. But they’re still six trained killers. Even in Lucifer’s armor, they can kill me, but not before I take out a few of them first.

I sprint straight at them. Five of them peel off out of the way. The sixth, a bearded Hellion who’s gone hungry long enough that his uniform is too big for him, pulls a KA-BAR from his boot and lunges at me.

Even drunk, I’m twice as fast as this backwoods bench-warmer. When he misses with the knife, he leaves himself wide open. I put my boot into his balls, and when he doubles over in pain, I bring my knee up to break his nose. He goes down spewing black blood, and right on cue, his five friends wake up and bum-rush me.

There’s not much to do when you’re on the bad end of this kind of pile-on except to keep punching and wait for an opening.

I duck, get my hands up in front of my face. Bob and weave. Throw the occasional jab just to remind them that I’m in here somewhere. Half the time they’re smacking the armor, so the beating could be a lot worse. What I don’t want is for them to get me on the ground, where they can take turns doing Olympic high dives onto my face.

The terrible truth is that I kind of like the beating. It’s not like when I got ambushed on the bike. This I saw was coming. It’s more like training in the arena. I’m not going to lie and say it doesn’t hurt, but it’s a familiar kind of pain and it’s better than another quiet night in, just the Greeks and me.

Don’t fear God

Don’t worry about death

What is good is easy to get, and

What is terrible is easy to endure

Fuck you, Epicurus. You stand here with a bunch of inbred mouth breathers looking to cut some payback for their shitty existence out of your hide. Do that and then hit me with some cool, cool Hellenic logic. Convince me and I’ll buy you all the ouzo and microwave moussaka in Athens.

This might actually be fun if Candy was here. By now she would have dropped her human face and let her inhuman Jade side out. Eyes like red slits in black ice. Claws and a shark-tooth smile. A gorgeous killing machine in ripped jeans and worn Chuck Taylors. The perfect girlfriend.

We’ve been dancing around for a couple of minutes and the beating slacks off just a bit. The brain trust is punching itself out. I’m supposed to be facedown getting kicked to death by now. The idiot with the KA-BAR is back on his feet but he’s hurt and punching like his hands are packing peanuts in a bunny-fur muff. I’ve drawn blood from at least two others. Another is down on his face and isn’t getting up.

The punching stops. Then everything stops. Everything. The leggers’ cursing. The sounds of the hawkers. Catcalls from people betting on the fight.

The whole market is looking up the street. The smell of incense mixes with the smells of hot fry oil and garbage. Voices sing softly. Not quite a song. More of a chant. It’s a lot prettier than most Hellion music, not that that’s hard. Hellion music mostly sounds like a wood chipper falling down an elevator shaft.

Then they come into view. Everyone bows their head. It’s a religious procession but not from Merihim’s church. The march is almost all women. Obyzuth is up front in her mask and the other women all wear similar masks. The woman at the head of the procession isn’t masked. Her face is scarred and battered, like she saw plenty of action in the war Upstairs. She wears her long black hair up, wrapped around a set of heavy, yellowed horns that stick out straight in front of her, the steel-wrapped tips pointing the way for her flock. She has to be Deumos.

Deumos is the head priestess of Hell’s other church. From what I’ve heard around the palace, it’s some kind of hard-ass goddess worship. Seems like Merihim and his boys got the giant tabernacle in the center of town and the girls got a piece-of-shit garage down by the railroad tracks. Everything is politics.

On the rare occasions her name comes up, the secret police and Merihim’s Tabernacle representatives have a good laugh. Talking about Deumos and her bunch like an old Haight-Ashbury peace-and-love cult. A handful of harmless babes with love beads and delusions of hippie grandeur.

I’m not so sure they should write them off. The crowd seems to take them pretty seriously, including the men, so whatever Deumos is selling it isn’t just to the women.

The chant turns quiet. Not quite a prayer. More like if you get close enough they’ll tell you a secret. I can make out a few words here and there.

“The being and the becoming …”

“… hand that sweeps clean the way …”

“… cold that burns like black flame …”

I’m so caught up watching them that it takes me a minute to remember I’m in the middle of a fight. Then someone reminds me.

A gun goes off and it feels like a pickup truck just planted its front bumper in my right kidney. I fall to my knees, holding my side. Then it dawns on me that I’m not hurt. The only pain is where my knees hit the pavement. The bullet didn’t even dent the armor.

The procession takes off at the sound of gunfire, with half the market right behind. The idiots sticking around probably have bets on the fight.

I get to my feet and turn to find Dirty Boots holding his Glock on me. He’s surprised I’m standing and now he’s waiting for me to fall over. Shooting a second time would spoil his gangster-movie moment. So will killing him in front of his friends but he doesn’t know that yet.

When I reach into my pocket for my na’at, it finally dawns on him that I’m not going down. He raises the Glock to fire again. Too late. I whip the na’at out at his arm.

Only it isn’t the na’at that hits him. And it doesn’t hit his arm.

The Magic 8 Ball from the ghost room. It slams into Dirty Boots and disappears inside him, leaving a gaping black hole in his chest. He leans forward a little but doesn’t fall over. He shudders. And five metal spider legs burst from his back, skewering his friends.

The legs go through the men like a harpoon through Velveeta. The legs curl back and spear them again. And again. Curling and spearing over and over. When the barbed legs retract, his friends are ripped apart in a spray of bone and gristle like they were hit by chain saws fired from cannons.

The spider legs burst from the hole in Dirty Boots’ chest and bend back on themselves, latching onto the edges of the hole. With a sudden jerk, the legs rip Dirty Boots’ chest open like cracking a lobster. The legs don’t stop pulling until they’ve bent back to touch themselves, practically turning him inside out.

Dirty Boots collapses in a wet heap and the spider legs disappear inside his body. A second later the 8 Ball rolls out and launches itself back into my hand.

The only Hellions that aren’t already running are the ones who fell and are crawling under market stalls. I turn and walk the other way.

My hands are covered in Hellion blood. I wipe the 8 Ball and my hands on my coat. The 8 Ball I shove into the pocket of my hoodie. I throw the coat into an oil drum full of burning trash. I snatch a heavy peacoat off the hanger in a hawker’s stall and get it on fast, moving the 8 Ball from the hoodie into the coat. I want a little more material between it and me.

There’s no fast way back to the bike without going through the market, so I get lost in the crowd trailing the procession.

Exactly what the fuck just happened?

I swear I left the 8 Ball back at the palace. But I can’t remember where. I’m sure I put the na’at in my pocket, but obviously I didn’t. Did the 8 Ball trick me into taking it?

Exactly what the fuck just happened?

I’m glad I didn’t let Merihim take the 8 Ball to the Tabernacle. I don’t want anyone getting their hands on it. Even me. When I get back, it gets locked up. The damned Glock too.

My head is spinning with Aqua Regia and exploding bodies. I’m not going to figure out anything now. Best just to keep my head down and look for a chance to disappear.

The marchers bunch up a few blocks farther on. It’s the women’s church, if you can call it that. It’s two stories tall. Not much more than one of the Holy Roller places you see scattered all over the poorer neighborhoods in L.A. Tiny congregations of true believers worshipping in what used to be nail salons or the Elks lodge.

Four banners hang in front of the church. The first three I recognize. Merihim’s church gospels and the ceiling of Lucifer’s library. The Thought. The Act. And the New World. But I don’t recognize the fourth banner. There’s a shape on it, but it’s vague like a face lost in TV static. In between the banners is a wicker figure. I can’t tell if it’s a man, a woman, or André the Giant. The wicker whatever is as tall as the church.

I didn’t know that Obyzuth was in Hell’s rebel church or that she was such a big wheel in it. That makes it extra interesting that Lucifer recommended her for the Council.

She and the other higher-up churchwomen are holding burning torches. Women move through the crowd, handing out lit candles. Deumos is whipping up the crowd with a pretty good Elmer Gantry impression.

“The old must burn to make way for the new. Not because it is old, but because the ancient wounds it worshipped and that it believes define it have become diseased and the disease threatens to spread everywhere and to everyone and lay them low.”

A murmur of agreement rolls through the crowd.

“You have to burn beliefs when they become convenient lies solely for the purpose of gaining and holding power. Isn’t it interesting that when the entire city shook to its foundations and bled, the Tabernacle was barely scratched?”

More murmurs. She has a point.

“The city burned and they want to turn back the clock to the way it was. We will not permit that.”

This time she gets cheers.

Deumos picks up a torch from the ground. Obyzuth brings over hers and lets Deumos light hers from it. She tosses the torch into the wicker figure as Obyzuth tosses hers. The other big-time churchwomen toss in theirs. The crowd tosses the candles and lurches forward. I go with it.

From this distance I can tell it’s a man they’re burning. God the Father blew it, so let’s give Him a hotfoot and hope Mom will come down and set things right. I hope you ladies brought lunch because you’ve got a long wait ahead of you. Dad’s broken into more pieces than Humpty Dumpty and Mom doesn’t exist.

A young Hellion woman hands me a candle and automatically lights it.

“Are you part of the movement, brother?”

I look around at the crowd.

“I don’t really know what it is. I just wanted to see.”

She nods.

“That’s all right. We all started from where you are. Throw a candle and take the next step.”

I expect her to move on but she doesn’t. She has candles in one hand and a cup in the other. There’s a small pile of coins at the bottom.

“If you can help at all, brother.”

She’s a Hellion monster. But I’m a monster too. She was tossed over Heaven’s walls like trash thousands of years ago but she looks and acts like a kid with her first summer job. Goddammit, for a second she reminds me of the Donut Universe girl and I’m digging in my pocket looking for something to give her. And come up with one big coin. The Veritas. I look at her one more time. No. She’s never had green hair or dished up day-old apple fritters.

I drop the Veritas in her cup. You need advice more than I do right now, kid. Momentum and the power of Bible bullshit will carry me safely home to shore. Or not. Anyway, maybe you can trade the Veritas for some decent black-market food.

She doesn’t see what I drop in her cup but nods her head in thanks.

“Don’t forget your candle.”

I follow the line of true believers up front. It seems the polite thing to do. Besides, I just paid for the candle. It might look funny if I dropped it and headed the other way.

People are laughing and singing like a high school pep rally up front by the flames. I should have a camera. Hellions laughing at a tower of fire. Now, this is the Hell I’ve been looking for. Flames. Mad cheers. And the tingling feeling of things right on the edge of getting out of control.

The fire is up over the wicker man’s waist. I have to admit, he’s staying upright better than I am. I toss the candle and watch as it tumbles into the flames.

Turning away, I duck deep into the crowd. And I can’t help but laugh. This has got to be the strangest day of my whole damn strange life.

It’s me in the barbecue pit. They’re burning Lucifer.

I CIRCLE AROUND the market and back to where I left the Hellion hog. I tweak the glamour one more time, giving myself a new Hellion face. I don’t toss off the glamour until I’m back in the palace heading up the secret stairs to the library.

I’m not in the mood to deal with assassins, Brimborion, or arsonist Joan of Arcs, so I use Vidocq’s friend’s trick of stacking furniture against the bedroom door.

In the morning I kick the bloody clothes I left at the end of the bed into the pile I want cleaned instead of burned.

I seriously don’t like the idea of Brimborion being able to walk in here anytime he likes. Just because I took his passkey doesn’t mean he doesn’t already have a spare squirreled away somewhere.

My whole life is ruled by magic keys and the assholes who do or don’t have them. I found a key in Mason’s room, but unless I want to start prying open Hellion skulls, it’s not going to do me any good.

Hell’s carved enough meat off me that there’s no way I’m touching the Magic 8 Ball with my real hand. I use my Kissi hand to move the ball from the pocket of the peacoat to the bottom dresser drawer with the revolver. Until someone can tell me what the thing is, I don’t want it near me. Which means no one down here. Not after what I saw it do in the market.

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