Aloha From Hell (16 page)

“Do you know where I am?”

“Yes,” says Josef.

“The building and everything inside is yours. Be sure to make a mess.”

“We’ve been waiting so long for something to do, a mess is inevitable.”

The line goes dead.

We walk to the other side of the street and into an alley hidden from view. Normally I’d cut and run from a scene like this, but Candy will want to see it.

“Who was that?”

“A guy who’s head I once chopped off.”

“What is it with you and cutting off heads?”

“It’s an old habit. The crowd loved it in the arena. If you do it right, the body does a twitchy little dance before it falls over.”

“It’s pretty fucked up that you know that. I like it.”

“I know. I’ve been saving that one up for you.”

She kisses me on the cheek.

A warm wind swirls down from the sky, kicking up garbage and whirlpooling it away. There’s a roar behind it. Like the wind, but lower in pitch. Like a billion hungry locusts. Or a jet flying low. Maybe both.

I say, “Among God’s many fuckups at the beginning of time was this. When he created the angels he created something else, too. They’re called the Kissi. Watch close because we’re not staying long.”

The Kissi come down on tligme downhe building like a black boiling fog. At first they look like a solid mass. It isn’t until they start tearing the building apart that you can see individual ones. I’m behind Candy with my arms wrapped around her, not because it’s cold but to prevent her from doing exactly what she’s doing now. Trying to leave the alley to get closer to the carnage. She only does it for a few seconds then settles down against my chest. I can hear her heart beating like a speed-metal-band encore. Something explodes and she jumps back against me. One of the Kissi must have hit a gas line. The building already looks like Pompeii. Broken walls. Cracked stones. And everything on fire. The horrible-beautiful faces of individual Kissi are visible in the flames. That’s enough fun for one night. I pull Candy back farther into the dark.

We come out by the hotel. She’s holding on to my hands, which are wrapped around her.

She looks up at me.

“I don’t have the words,” she says. “You’ve seen a lot of that kind of stuff, haven’t you?”

“Way too much for my taste.”

She steps out from my arms and takes my hand.

“Let’s go upstairs and finish off the furniture.”

“I can’t right now. Every bit of information I get makes this whole thing more confusing. I know Aelita is doing this to fuck with me, but that can’t be all there is to it. She thinks too big for that. And what does ‘If you’ve made it this far, it’s already too late’ mean? I need to talk to Kasabian. Want to come with me?”

She shakes her head.

“He talked my ear off before. He doesn’t get out much, does he? I think I need to take a break before I dive back in.”

“Okay. I’ll see you upstairs in a little while.”

She heads for the room.

“Take as long as you want. I’m starting without you. You’ll just have to catch up.”

“I’ll bring my Jet Ski.”

I
NSIDE
, K
ASABIAN IS
drinking a beer and watching
Las Montañas del Gehenna,
an obscure seventies Mexican spaghetti western. Kind of a cross between
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
and Jodorowsky’s God-is-a-Freudian-shootist epic,
El Topo
. After a long drought hits their village, the residents decide to sacrifice a young girl to the ancient Mayan rain god. The girl’s father and lover shoot up the village and rescue her. Later, a priest visits them at their hideout in the desert. He tells them that they have to find the gods and make it up to them for stealing their sacrific" aeir sace. Midway into the movie, the girl and the two men ride their horses up a mountain of bleached human and animal bones to a cave that’s the entrance to the Mayan underworld. The gods’ minions grab the girl and lay her out on a stone altar while a priest holds an obsidian knife over her, ready to cut out her heart. The girl’s father and lover have to play the traditional to-the-death Mayan ball game to see if they’re all going to be sacrificed or they get to return to earth. I was watching
Las Montañas del Gehenna
the night Mason sent me Downtown, so I never got to see if any of them survived.

“Is that blood on your jacket? You got shot again. Are you a bullet magnet or just have a fetish for never wearing the same clothes twice?”

I don’t want to see how
Las Montañas del Gehenna
turns out. I decided a long time ago that the girl makes it home and I don’t want to find out I’m wrong. I turn off the set.

“Hey! I’m watching that.”

“You can finish it later. I just found out that Aelita is mixed up in this Hunter thing.”

He nods.

“I’m not surprised. I think she’s got something going with Mason, too. An angel’s been sneaking in and out of Hell, coming in from way out in the badlands where even Hellions don’t go. Who else is crazy enough to deal with Mason but her?”

“They’re the ones that probably sent the Qlipots or whatever they’re called. But why go after Hunter? And why get me involved? Maybe they’re trying to railroad me into a trap.”

“Were you just trying to say ‘Qliphoth’? Look at you. You learned a big-boy word.”

“Aelita can’t have hit God already. That would shake the whole universe. They’re not ready to invade Heaven, are they?”

“No way. Generals are still arguing over plans. Troops are still coming in from all over Hell. No way they’re ready.”

“Why would she be tiptoeing down to Hell?”

“Mason just got hold of something that’s got him pretty excited. It’s big, too. Like an oversized gold coffin carved with all kinds of binding runes and hexes. Aelita might have smuggled something out of Heaven. Maybe a weapon.”

“Or something to help Mason make a new key to the Room of Thirteen Doors?”

“More likely something like the Druj Ammun. A passkey to a secret back door in Heaven. She’s supposed to have allies upstairs, so it wouldn’t surprise me.”

“What if she didn’hol didnt come straight from Heaven? If she sent that demon after Hunter, maybe she has more demons. Could she and Mason be raising a demon army?”

Kasabian smirks.

“Even Lucifer couldn’t do that. Training demons is like herding cats on acid.”

My gut is churning and I really want to hit something.

“This is all on me. I got too clever. I should have killed Mason when I had the chance. That proves my theory that thinking’s overrated.”

“Get a grip. We can rule out Mason having a key. He’d have used it by now. He’d have come back himself or sent a Hellion hit squad. No. This is something else.”

“It’s got to be the thing I’m too late to stop. I need to talk to the Sentenzas again. I freaked out and left last time when I realized that Hunter is TJ’s kid brother.”

“TJ? Our TJ? That’s fucking insidious.”

“I missed something with them. I’ll go back in the morning. You keep watching Downtown. Consider it self-defense. If Mason gets back here, it isn’t just me he’s going to snuff.”

“Now you’ve piqued my interest.”

I think about things for a minute.

“You know, you could have told me some of this before. And saved me a lot of bullshit time.”

“Right. I never know how you’re going to react to information. I don’t need you going batshit and throwing me out or pulling a gun.”

It’s true. I’ve thrown the little weasel out and I’ve taken a few potshots at him. It’s not like I didn’t have my reasons. He was spying on me for Lucifer, and then there was that time he tried to kill me. But that was a while ago, and since then the angel has been whispering sweet nothings in my ear about not killing people when they get annoying. And it was before I figured that I need all the friends I can get in this world. Not that Kasabian is exactly a friend, but he has good taste in movies and we both want Mason drawn and quartered.

He scuttles over to the set and turns it back on.

“If you’re going to shoot me, I want to finish my movie.”

On the monitor, the two vaqueros are playing the Mayan ball game. They’re slow and clumsy, falling all over each other.

“All right, man. Sure. Mea culpa. On occasion I’ve been known to express myself in uncouth ways, but I’m on the wagon for pulling guns on people I know.&000ple I k#x201D;

He turns his eyes from the monitor and looks at me for a minute.

“So that’s my apology?”

“I guess so.”

He turns off the movie, picks up his beer, and drinks. A trickle leaks out from the bottom of his neck and into his bucket.

“Ever since Lucifer left, the place has been falling apart, and I don’t mean the trash isn’t getting picked up. I mean Old Testament falling apart. Earthquakes. Wild fires. Hellion food riots. That’s something you don’t want to see. No one’s in charge. Mason has the army and local Pinkertons tied up with his war plans. It’s like he doesn’t give a rat’s ass how Hell is going to . . . you know. Hell.”

“Who’s working with him?”

“Most of Lucifer’s generals have defected. Abaddon, Wormwood, Mammon. They’re all in Pandemonium. General Semyazah is the only holdout. He doesn’t like the idea of being pushed around by a mortal. And he commands a shitload of troops. I don’t know if they can pull off the attack without him or his troops.”

I get a Malediction from my coat and pour myself a drink from a bottle of Jack on the nightstand.

“You know what’s weird? This whole thing between me and Mason—I can’t even remember what started it.”

“Aside from the fact that you’re exactly alike?”

“Fuck you.”

“The truth hurts doesn’t it, Tinker Bell?”

I rub my arm where the bullet grazed me. At least it helps me forget about the burns on my arms.

“I don’t get this Heaven and Hell thing of his at all,” I say. “It’s stupid enough wanting to grab Hell, but why would Mason want Heaven, too? The dry-cleaning bills on all those robes must be murder.”

Kasabian swigs his beer. It sounds like distant rain as it drains from his neck into the bucket.

“I don’t think Mason wants to be God. I think he just wants to be in control,” says Kasabian. “Look, man, just because you don’t want anything doesn’t mean the rest of us feel that way. You always hid or fucked around with your power. Mason took his seriously because he had to. He was part of a heavyweight Sub Rosa clan and Daddy wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Boo-hoo. The rich kid had it rough.”

“He was raised to take magic as seriously as anyone alive. He had to. He went to Hell, too, when he was a kid. He used to joke about it.”

I stare at him. Kasabian widens his eyes and nods, pleased he caught me off guard.

“What do you fucking mean, Mason was in Hell?”

Kasabian rolls his eyes.

“Not that Hell. Metaphorical Hell. Christ, how can you not know any of this? Mason was famous when he was a kid. His parents were even more famous.”

“I met his mom once. A dumpy lady with the Bettie Page hair and trophy-wife jewelry. She’s famous?”

“That was his aunt. His parents were dead and regular civilian court appointed an uncle and auntie dearest to take care of him. They were happy to move into the house in Beverly Hills and spend as much of Mason’s inheritance as they could. Maybe that’s why he burned the house when he disappeared. It covered up what he did to you and it sent the Beverly Hillbillies packing.”

“Tell me about Mason’s metaphorical Hell.”

Mason grunts. He’s calling me a hick without actually saying it out loud.

“It started with Mason’s father, old Ammit Faim. Ammit killed and hexed his way into running a big chunk of the California drug biz, and I don’t mean aspirin. Why would he cozy up to civilian dope peddlers? Because drugs are power and influence, and Ammit and Gabriella, Mason’s mom, were the ambitious type.”

He swigs from his beer.

“You know what assholes rich Sub Rosas are. Everything is about status and building a dynasty. None of the other clans were into the drug biz, so there wasn’t any competition. He imported the stuff. Set up operations to manufacture the complicated stuff and then cut and distributed it himself. He had a handle on Sub Rosa recreational drugs and most of the pot, meth, and Ecstasy in the state, but he didn’t control heroin and opium. So he decided to go to the source. Ammit and Gabriella packed up the kiddies, that’s Mason and his little sister—bet you didn’t even know he had a sister—and off the family went to Burma.”

“The drug connection has to be why Mason and Aelita dosed Hunter. Another joke or clue for me to figure out.”

“Shut up,” Kasabian says. “Ammit had enough connections to get a meeting with an opium general up north. He was an army officer who’d defected and took a lot of his troops with him. Formed his own private army and marched into the Golden Triangle. They paid the local farmers to raise poppies for them. The farmers didn’t care. Crops are crops and they made more money than growing rice.