The Getaway God (35 page)

“It won't work. Chaya is too resistant and I'm too weak.”

Samael says, “Forget Stark's idea. There has to be a better way.”

Muninn shakes his head.

“No. We tried it your way and it didn't work. And Chaya is right. Even if we two came together, we wouldn't have the strength to hold off the Angra for long. They would destroy Heaven, Hell, and Earth. And who knows how much of the rest of the universe?”

Chaya stands up and goes across the room, trying to put some distance between himself and his brother.

“You're a fool to volunteer.”

He looks at Samael.

“And you're a fool to let him.”

He looks at me.

“You. Get out. Now.”

Samael helps Muninn up off the floor.

He says, “Chaya is right. There are things we have to take care of. When do you think you'll want to do this?”

“Soon. Tonight.”

Muninn looks at the bottle on the table. He goes over and pours himself a stiff one.

“All right. I'll be ready.”

I get up and go over to Samael.

“Take a walk with me?”

“Of course.”

He turns to his fathers and for a second I see how strange this whole thing must be for him. The only father I knew was a bastard who tried to shoot me. Samael has to balance two versions of the same father simultaneously. Muninn, all compassion, but who's spent most of his existence pretending not to be a deity. And Chaya, dog shit in a tight suit, but one who'll never give up. He'll fight forever to stay alive.

Samael and I get in the elevator and go down to the basement and the kennels.

“Do me a favor and make sure the hounds are hungry and ready to go. I have a feeling we'll need them before the night is over.”

He looks around at the beasts pawing at their cages.

“I'll make sure. And I'll join you in Los Angeles when Father settles on how he wants to handle things.”

“We should talk about that.”

“How so?”

“Later. When you come to town. For now work on the dogs. I need to make a stop before going home.”

“I'd give you one of the cars, but you don't want to be seen in the streets. Neither do I. Not after what we did to Merihim.”

“You sorry about that?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“Good. See you Uptown.”

“Don't destroy the world without me.”

I step into a shadow and come out by the deserted market across from Wild Bill's bar.

P
ANDEMONIUM IS AS
waterlogged as L.A. and just as deserted. Are all the little Hellions huddled in their grimy Hobbit holes or, like L.A.'s scaredy cats, on the run, hoping to find a haven less obviously doomed?

I walk through the bloody downpour and push open the door to the bar.

In all the time I've been coming here I remember very few moments without noise from the jukebox, from arguments, from laughter, and from deals and schemes being hatched. But tonight it's quieter than a Texas graveyard on Super Bowl Sunday. Bill and Cindil are seated at a table on the far side of the room. Each has a glass in front of them, but neither is drinking.

“Is business so grim you don't even go behind the bar anymore?”

Bill's eyes flicker to something over my shoulder. I reach for the Colt but get a whiff of the room and listen for the scraping of boots. I don't bother with the gun then because I know I'm surrounded. One of them moves around in front of me. I look left and right. Four more Hellion legionnaires. Lucky me. It's not a whole platoon, just some hotshots looking for a bounty. I put my hands up.

The solder in front of me gets his Glock right up in my face and reaches under my coat, feeling around for my gun. When he locates something solid, the idiot tries to snatch it, but ends up screaming. What he got hold of was my knife and now his fingers are bloody bratwurst cut down to the bone. I punch him in the throat and, while he's gagging, pull the Colt, shoving the pistol under his chin.

Unfortunately, I miscounted the number of creeps in the room. One must have been crouched nearby under the tables. Before I can turn, he coldcocks me. I stumble, trip over a chair, and land on a table still holding on to Mr. Sausage Fingers. The clumsy landing knocks the Colt out of my hand and it slides across the room, too far for me to dive for.

I shove the maimed Hellion away and slump over a chair, looking a lot more hurt than I really am. I wish I could reach my gun, but I can't, so I pull the na'at. I feign a fall, and as the coldcocker moves in to hit me again, I swing the na'at, extending it into a barbed spear. It goes deep into the soldier's gut, and when I pull it back, a fair amount of insides comes with it. The sight freezes his buddies long enough for me to get out the black blade and toss it through the eye of a soldier by the jukebox.

A legionnaire by the bar pops off a few shots. Seeing his friends go down so fast must have spooked him because he fires wildly, murdering furniture and the floor. I move in on him as he finally remembers he's a soldier and raises his gun. He hits me twice in the chest and I go down face-­first.

I'm beginning to think no one in Hell likes me.

I try to sit up and meet a gun barrel halfway there. Mr. Sausage Fingers has his Glock pointed at my head. He squeezes the trigger and there isn't a goddamned thing I can do about it.

A gun goes off and the first thing I notice is how extremely not dead I am and how Mr. Sausage Fingers has a fist-­size hole in his chest. I look over and there's Cindil, shaky-­legged, her mouth open like she's either going to puke or sing “America the Beautiful,” holding my Colt. She shoots again and Mr. Sausage Fingers hits the deck.

Cue all hell breaking loose. The three remaining legionnaires open up on the room, some shooting at me and some at the others. I roll behind Sausage Fingers' body, find his dropped Glock, and fire back. My hand is unsteady enough that I hit absolutely nothing of interest.

Cindil keeps firing my Colt, even while Bill drags her behind the bar. I don't know if she hits any of the soldiers, but she looks fierce enough to give them something to worry about.

A moment later Bill pops up from behind the bar with the pistol I gave him earlier. I stop firing and make myself very small. What else am I going to do? I'm good with a gun, but Wild Bill was the greatest shootist in the west, and even if he's past his prime he's better than me nursing a ­couple of slugs in my chest.

The shooting doesn't last long. When it's over Sausage Fingers has a few more holes in him, but I don't. The rest of the soldiers lie splayed around the room. Bill comes from around the bar and puts one more bullet in each of their heads. Technically it's to make sure they're really out, but there's also a small measure of payback for the century of misery he's spent under the heel of Hellions.

I pull myself up and onto a chair.

Cindil comes around in front of me. She opens my coat and makes a face.

“You're shot.”

“It's not the first time. And I've been hit worse. Let me just sit here a minute.”

She crosses her arms and looks down at me.

“You walk into Hell to find me and you blow it off when you get shot. What exactly are you?”

“Just hard to kill is all.”

When I first went to Max Overdrive after escaping Hell, Kasabian shot me six times. I'm pretty sure I only took two bullets tonight, but they hurt like six banshees with seven machetes. The bullets will have to come out eventually, but not tonight. Tonight I get to rattle around like a pinball machine.

Bill brings me a glass of Hellion rotgut. I take a long pull. Bill pulls up a chair and sits down.

“You can't stay here and you can't come back. More soldiers will come looking for their friends.”

“You can't stay either. You're both coming with me.”

“Where to?” says Cindil.

“To meet Lucifer. Well, retired Lucifer. He'll explain it.”

By the time I finish the drink my head feels like it's back on straight again. I get up and head for a shadow.

“You two coming?”

They follow me over and I lead them through the Room and out again into the hellhound kennel.

Samael is still there, smoking a Malediction and drinking from a silver flask. He raises his eyebrows at us.

“That was quick,” he says. Then eyes my shirt. “But you took the time to hurt yourself again. If only you were this productive when you ran Hell.”

Cindil looks at me.

“You ran Hell?”

“I was more of a summer intern. Samael will explain everything.”

I point to each of them in turn.

“This is Cindil and this is Wild Bill. Take care of them, will you?”

Samael graciously offers his flask to his guests. Both decline.

“Of course I will. And then I'll wash your car, shall I?”

“You know I ride a bike these days. But it could use some detailing.”

I nod toward the cages.

“You three might want to get out of here. I'm letting the hounds out.”

Samael leads Bill and Cindil to the elevator.

As the doors close Samael says, “Love you in red, James.”

O
NCE THE HOUNDS
are happily prowling around the kennels, I head back for Vigil HQ.

Shot and bloody, I need a moment to myself, so I come out into the parking lot with a lovely view of the golf course. It's flooded now, so they've given up playing games. Abandoned golf carts still loaded with clubs sit out in the rain with water up past their wheels. I wade out into the deep and steal a club. I always wondered what those things feel like. The weight is strange. All on the end, like a morning star. Maybe we could have used these in the arena. Play a quick round of eighteen holes and the winner beats the loser to death with a putter. I take a swing and the bullets in my chest grind against bone.

Ow. That was stupid.

But the pain pulls me back into myself and I toss the club out into the rain. When I turn to go inside I happen to notice that I'm standing next to a God.

He's in an ordinary chop-­shop body, but it's obvious he's not an ordinary demon. He's naked. Rain pools and trickles down the thick scars where his mismatched limbs go together. A blue-­eyed blond head perched on an olive-­skinned chest, one muscular nut-­brown leg and the other white and flabby with the Addams Family tattooed down the calf. His form isn't entirely solid, but transdimensional like Ten Thousand Shadows. With the slightest movement, like when he looks up into the night sky, his body morphs from male to female, to something like a sea anemone with eyes on the ends of its stingers, to an ice-­blue light encased in a living glass cage shaped like one of Mason's polyhedral dice.

The rain stops. It doesn't end. It just stops. Drops suspended in the air like a million Christmas lights.

“It is good to finally meet, Sandman Slim. I heard so much about you from Aswangana.”

“How is Lamia? She looked better in a party dress.”

“You could have killed her when she was in such a vulnerable form. Why did you hesitate?”

“I guess I felt sorry for her. Fucked over once by God and again by the ­people controlling her earthly form.”

The God cocks his head. It goes from the blond man to a bird's skull to something dark and gelatinous.

“Sympathy for a fallen God,” he says. “That is why we respect you. You have a better sense of us than most. That is why I'm here. The nephilim and Angra are outcasts together. Join us and be an outcast no more.”

“What's your name?”

He looks at me like it's a strange question.

“I do not have a name. My name is the sound of the trembling void between the stars.”

“Listen, Shaky, some of your friends already tried the sales pitch. I told them no and I'll tell you no. I understand how pissed off you are. I've felt it too. It isn't easy being the only one of me in a universe where everyone hates you. But I can't let you destroy the place. All my friends are here, and so's my stuff. I mean, I just got
Bullet for the General
on Blu-­ray.”

“I know you cannot use the Qomrama Om Ya. Give it to me. Only a portion of me came through the rift. I will summon myself and then the other Angra. You will see. It will be glorious.”

“It's not just me, you know. The Vigil will fight you. The Sub Rosa too.”

He laughs and I get a little hint of what he means by the void between the stars. The sound is deep, lonely, and cold.

“The Sub Rosa will come to us when the moment is right. They are part of us. Why do you think their portion of humanity is more powerful than the rest? Able to manipulate the forces of nature? What you call magic.”

“They ate all their vegetables when they were kids?”

“It is because like all demons, the Sub Rosa are simply another form of Qliphoth. The most sophisticated form, which means that when the time comes they will recognize us as their progenitors and return home to us.”

Holy shit. The Sub Rosa are just skin flakes from the Angra's backside. Brainy, complicated Qliphoth, but in the big scheme of things no better than a Digger or an Eater. Wait until the gals around the watercooler hear about this.

“If I told you yes, you'd know I was lying, so I'm not going to bother. The answer was no before and it's no now.”

He raises his hand, claw, tentacle.

“I could kill you right here, on this spot.”

I take a step back.

“I have the Qomrama, so I'm not sure I believe you. I'm not great at using it, but it's killed for me before. Want to see if it will kill again?”

“If you can kill me why don't you?”

“I don't want to kill you. I just want you to fuck off and leave us alone.”

Shaky takes a step, closing the distance between us.

“You can't kill me. The Qomrama won't let you.”

“I told you. I don't want to kill you.”