Kill the Dead (41 page)

“Did it hurt?”

“It stung.”

“Good.”

The phone rings. Koralin goes to the desk and exchanges a few words with the caller.

“Jan is here.”

“Tell him to take the elevator to three.”

I pick up my gun and go to the door.

“Our deal is still on, but if you get near Aki while I let them in, I’ll blow his head off.”

I push open the door just as the elevator arrives.

“In here.”

Candy comes through first. She throws her arms around me and holds on tight.

“He’s dead. Doc is dead,” she says. “That angel bitch Aelita killed him.”

“I know. It’s all right. We’ll get through this.”

Jan comes in after her with Kasabian’s bowling bag.

I gesture to him with the gun.

“Go over to the table and let him out. Then sit down next to your wife.”

Jan unzips the bag and puts Kasabian on the table. Jan sits down at the far end of the sofa, as far from Koralin as he can.

“Fuck you, you Kraut shit.”

I set Candy in a chair by the desk.

“You all right, Kasabian?”

“No thanks to these pricks. That bitch stood there while that crazy-ass angel stabbed Kinski.”

“Sit tight and keep quiet. This will be over with soon.”

“Excuse me,” says Koralin. “You have your friends. Please put the pistol down.”

I look at Aki and then at her and set the gun on the table.

“We’re going to do this slowly and carefully so there aren’t any misunderstandings, all right?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Koralin, stand up with your hands where I can see them. Come down to the end of the table with me. I’ll take the
Druj
from my pocket and hand it to you.”

I stand up while Koralin comes around, put my hand in my pocket, and take out the
Druj.
I exaggerate my arm and hand movements so she can see what I’m doing. When it’s out, I show her the
Druj
and that I’m not holding anything else.

“Put out your hands.”

She does and I set the
Druj
there. I step back as Koralin smiles and holds it up so Aki can see.

“We have it, darling. It’s ours.”

She turns to me, all motherly and full of aristocratic outrage.

“You’re all dead. I’ll call every golem in the city down on you. They’ll each get one shallow bite. It will take days for you to die.”

Koralin really wants Drifters by her side, so they come to her. The ones I brought in from the hall and lobby stashed around the edges of the room earlier are drawn to her and the
Druj.
When she sees them she laughs with delight. She’s amused just long enough for me to grab the na’at and whip the end of it into her chest like a dagger. There’s no time to aim well, but I do all right.

The end slips between her ribs and into her heart. Another flick and the na’at retracts. Koralin falls to the floor grunting like an animal in shock and pain. Her milk-pale skin crawls with patches of red. Her lips fade from deep blue to bright crimson as she draws her first choked and agonized breath since birth.

“Did you know that the cure for a zombie bite is a Savant’s blood? I learned that when Johnny Thunders gave me some of his. I used some to help out Brigitte and I put the rest on the na’at. Johnny must have been right because it looks to me like you’re breathing again. How does it feel to be alive after all these years? Just another pathetic mortal lowlife. Weird, I bet. Don’t worry. You won’t feel it for long.”

I pick up the
Druj
from where she dropped it, pull Candy from the sofa, and hand her Kasabian.

The Drifters crowd around Koralin. They move in slowly, a little uncertain of who or what she is. She was one of them a moment ago, but she must be starting to smell human. I wonder what her body temperature has to be before they know she’s food.

“If you want to go, you can go,” I tell Jan.

He stands there.

“I can’t leave her to this.”

“I’m giving you a break because of Eleanor.”

“Please.”

“No.”

He grabs the athame from the table and throws it. He’s good, too. He’s handled a knife before.

I duck it, but Candy is looking at Koralin, so she doesn’t see it coming. The knife hits her arm and goes in to the hilt. She drops Kasabian and I flick out the na’at, hitting Jan in the chest. It knocks him back onto the sofa and in a few seconds he’s staring through watery eyes filled with the shock and deep-down horror of being alive. A moment later he starts to breathe. As his lungs begin filling with air he reaches for my gun, but his body is still in shock and he’s too clumsy to reach it. I pick it up and put it in his hand. I help him steady it under his chin so he’ll get it right when he pulls the trigger. The sound of a gun going off inside hurts my ears and the back of Jan’s head explodes out in a red spray. The Drifters not heading for Koralin make a beeline for the gore. I take the gun back and put it in my jacket.

I tuck Kasabian under my arm, put my arm around Candy, and help her to the door.

“What about the boy?” she asks.

“He wants to be part of the family. Let him.”

We’re out in the hall when the screaming starts. I close the door and smash the grandfather clock to pieces, sealing the room. I grab Candy and Kasabian and step through a shadow and back to the old apartment.

I can see Brigitte through the bedroom door. She’s propped up on pillows and her eyes are open.

Allegra is coming toward us.

“I’m sorry to always show up with walking wounded. But we don’t have anywhere else to go anymore,” I tell her.

Allegra takes Candy, lays her out on the sofa, and goes for first-aid supplies.

“You know you are always welcome. Family is difficult, but having none is worse.”

Kasabian is still under my arm.

“Oh Christ. Put me back with the zombies, Strawberry Shortcake.”

I go back to the bedroom. Brigitte sits up and puts out her hand. I take it, but only to make her feel better. She’s still too weak to explain that the man she thinks she’s looking at is gone.

There’s a blast in the street. Then shouting. I look out the window and see a couple of girls and a young guy running from a pack of Lacunas. They have guns and are shooting. They’re getting some pretty good hits, but it’s not going to do them any good. They have to slow down when they aim.
In a minute or two they’ll be out of bullets and the Lacunas will have gained on them enough that it will be over.

I turn to Brigitte.

“I’ll be back in a minute.”

I climb the stairs to the roof. When I get there I can still hear gunfire, but it’s less frequent. They know they’re running low on ammo.

From the edge of the roof I can see the whole city. It’s a patchwork of light and dead blacked-out areas and the whole thing has turned orange and bleached yellow from dozens of fires.

The shooters are out of bullets and the Lacunas close in.

Koralin must have known something extra about how the
Druj
works. I could make the Drifters nearby do what I want, but there’s no way I can control a whole city. She acted like she could. Maybe I should have asked her about that before letting the Drifters have her.

Even if I could control them all, would that save the day? Lucifer said not to rely on any one weapon. That I might not even be able to keep this one. Maybe that’s the point. The fatal flaw that will reveal itself at exactly the worst moment. When would that be? When I sneak Downtown and use the
Druj
to hunt Mason? Now, when I try to get the Drifters to march back to their caves?

When I was still in the arena, I stole a knife to kill another fighter I didn’t like. I tried stabbing him in the tunnel leading to the fighting floor, but the knife’s weight was odd and the blade wasn’t sharp enough. I found out later that it was a throwing knife, completely wrong for hand-to-hand
fighting. It only had power when you threw it. To use it, you couldn’t keep it.

I take the
Druj
out of my pocket and throw it off the roof. It turns over and over in the air like a coin tossed on a bet. It takes forever to hit the ground.

The Lacunas have caught up with the shooters. They’re on them. I can hear them screaming.

The
Druj
hits the pavement and shatters into a million pieces.

The Lacunas freeze. For a moment they’re horrible dummies in a Hellion spook house. Then quietly, like wind on a roof, they fall apart. They’re dust before they hit the ground. The shooters, both girls and the boy, get up. They stagger, grab each other, and look around. When they see what’s happened, they run away as fast as they can. The same thing is happening farther down the street. Drifters are falling apart everywhere. In the distance, civilians are single dots running from packs of other dots. Then the pack disappears and the lone dot stops running.

The fires still burn. Half the city is still blacked out. Sirens scream and helicopters cut up the sky. I go back downstairs.

W
HEN IT’S LIGHT
out, I take Kasabian back to Max Overload to see what condition the place is in.

Downstairs is trashed. It doesn’t look like Drifters made it inside, but in the great tradition of all L.A. apocalypses, looters did. The windows and doors are smashed. The cartoons, action movies, and porn sections are pretty much cleared out. The cash registers are gone, too.

Upstairs, the lock on the door is broken, but the place is pretty much intact. There’s a big circle of dried blood on the bed.

“That’s where that crazy bitch got Kinski. I don’t know what happened to his body. Sorry, man. I know you two were tight.”

“Not really.”

I wad up the sheets, take them and the bed downstairs, and leave them by the curb with the broken glass and burned-out cars. I can’t remember the city ever being this quiet. Like a funeral on Christmas morning. I don’t see any single people go by. Everyone huddles together in twos and threes and more. Walking wounded. Piles of dust mark the places where Drifters fell. Garbage trucks and commandeered pickups lined with plastic sheets cruise Hollywood Boulevard shoveling up human remains.

I go back upstairs and sit on the bed frame. I don’t know what to do. An angel should have some idea of where to go from here. Stark would do something. Something stupid, but something. If I could keep him from drinking, he wouldn’t be bad to have around sometimes. But he’s gone.

“Are there any cigarettes?” asks Kasabian.

I look around, but can’t find any. I go back downstairs and find a half-smoked butt on the counter. I take it upstairs, light it with Mason’s lighter, and hold it out for Kasabian. He takes a couple of puffs.

“You don’t want any?”

“No.”

“You’re different, man. Not like depressed different. I’ve seen that. That bite fucked you all up.”

“I’m fine. I’m just not smoking or drinking. I’m better.”

“A lot of laughs, too. You usually would have made some stupid joke by now instead of sitting there like you just got electroshock.”

“It could have been ten.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It’s a Hellion joke. When God threw them from Heaven, they fell for nine days, so when everything goes to shit you say…”

“…It could have been ten. Nice. Now you’re doing some demon’s stand-up act. You’re going to be a riot clean and sober.”

“I wonder if anywhere still has food.”

“And beer. You might be Sister Mary Dry County, but some of us are still people and need booze.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

I pull the door closed and go out through the front.

The boulevard is a ghost town. What a shock. There are patches of blood and a smoldering garage around the corner, but the worst seems to be over. I pass a dozen gutted stores, including some markets, but I can’t make myself go in. I’m hungry and not above stealing, but I don’t want to trip over any half-eaten bodies inside.

If I was a religious man (and no, knowing there’s a Heaven and Hell, God and devil and angels doesn’t help being religious one little bit), I might take what I see as a sign. There’s a line outside Donut Universe. The windows are shattered and some of the booths have been trashed, but they have power and they’re pouring coffee for a long line of shell-shocked civilians. Coffee would be nice, but
if I get in line someone might try to talk to me. I keep walking.

“Hey!”

Someone is yelling, but it doesn’t sound scared, so I don’t turn around. There’s a hand on my arm. I turn, ready to punch or shoot.

It’s Janet, the donut girl. She’s pale and her hair is spiked and messy and her eyes are dark, like she hasn’t slept since Groundhog Day.

“You’re alive,” she says.

“So are you. How was the Chinese food?”

“The chow mein was greasy, but the mu shu pork was good. Here,” she says, and puts a bag in my hand.

“We’re out of fritters, so it’s just an assortment of what we have left. We haven’t made any new ones, so they’re a little stale. But the coffee is hot.”

“I think you just saved my life, Janet.”

“We’re even, then.”

“It’s really good to see you.”

“You, too.”

She kisses me on the cheek and runs back into Donut Universe. People in line glare at me, wondering why I rate special treatment.

I saved your lives, assholes. Let me have a fucking donut.

C
ANDY IS SITTING
on the bed frame when I get back.

“Hi.”

“Hi yourself. Want a bear claw?”

“No thanks.”

“I guess you and Kasabian have met.”

“Yeah. We talked about movies and gossiped about you last night.”

I put the bags on Kasabian’s table and sit down next to Candy.

“I’m sorry about the doc.”

It takes her a while to say anything. She’s trying hard not to cry.

“Yeah. You know about him, right?”

“That he’s my father? Yeah. I heard.”

“I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you, but he wouldn’t let me. He wanted to do it when the time was right and it could just be you two for a while and you could talk or fight or whatever it is fathers and sons do.”

“I think I’ll miss him.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

She leans against me. I put my arm around her because the angel knows I’m supposed to at a moment like this.