by Tad Williams
As I reached the outskirts of San Judas I realized I hadn’t eaten yet. After my long adventure in the Bayview district it was well into the afternoon, and I hadn’t had any lunch, or much breakfast for that matter, and for once I had a pocket full of money. I wouldn’t get to spend any of it in Hell, and Orban would probably auction off my car anyway, so I took the exit to Redwood Shores and headed for an expensive Japanese place I knew out there, on the water.
By the time I was ready to order I discovered I wasn’t as hungry as I’d thought, so I just asked for a basket of mixed tempura to go with my Sapporo. I crunched at it distractedly and let my thoughts flop around as I watched the seagulls dive off the rail outside. I was trying to make things come out in some order other than “you’re pretty much screwed,” but I couldn’t. My options seemed to be exactly two: stay and eventually find myself with a pointy object poking deep into my delicate brain tissues, courtesy of Smyler, or take the fight to Eligor with some farce of trying to sneak my girlfriend out of Hell, like a warped Crosby and Hope movie—The Road to Inferno. Either way, I could no longer rely on my bosses to resurrect me if I died in action, me being under suspicion and all.
The restaurant was almost deserted at that time of day, so I took my time eating, and might have had a second beer or two by the time I finally made my way back onto the Bayshore and headed home. It was still light but the sun was showing signs of wanting to get down behind the hills for the night, and downtown Jude was full of the late-afternoon shadows that come so quickly, dropping the temperature in the concrete canyons around Beeger Square ten degrees or so in a matter of minutes.
And, no, when I got to my place I didn’t just turn off Chet Baker, leap out of my car, and charge in. I hadn’t forgotten what happened the last time. I drove around the block twice with my eyes wide open but saw no sign of anything unusual, just the usual assortment of grocery-haulers and dog-walkers that you’d get pretty much any decent day. Still, I parked across the street from my building and went through the lobby as cautiously as I could manage without looking like a complete idiot. Since Smyler seemed to know where I lived, I would probably have to pack up and move again, which depressed the shit out of me. Little as I owned, I hadn’t even unpacked it yet.
The door was locked, which reassured me slightly. As I pushed the door open, I tucked my gun into my waistband so I’d have a hand free in case anything jumped on me. Nothing jumped on me. There was, however, a stranger sitting in the middle of my couch.
My gun was back in my hand so quickly I almost didn’t realize I’d pulled it, pointed right at his calm face. It wasn’t Smyler, that was the good part, but I couldn’t think of anyone or anything else that ought to be in my place when I wasn’t there. I’d never seen this stranger before, a middle-aged Semitic-looking guy with a salt and pepper beard and a hairline that inched back almost to the top of his head.
“Who the hell are you?”
He looked at me with mild reproach. “Please don’t point that at me. I don’t mean you any harm.”
“Then what are you doing here? I don’t recall inviting you.”
He shook his head. “You didn’t. But I’m a friend.” His hands were folded in his lap. He wore a cheap brown suit and a charcoal gray overcoat, oddly old-fashioned in a San Judas spring. Everything about him seemed tailored toward looking harmless. There are creatures in nature that look like that just so they can get their victims close enough to sink their teeth into them. Some of those creatures even talk as nicely as this guy. I’ve met them. Until I knew better, this mild, gray man officially scared me, so I kept my gun trained between his mild, gray eyes.
“Then tell me something that will convince me not to put a bunch of silver in you so I can dump you out by the trash cans and settle in to watch Dancing With The Stars.”
His smile was only slightly more robust than the Broken Boy’s. “Let’s go for a walk, Bobby.” When he saw me hesitate, he slowly lifted those harmless hands. “If I wanted to hurt you, would I wait for you here, then ask you to come outside?”
“You would if you had buddies waiting out there,” I said, but he was right, it didn’t really make sense. Not that I assumed he was my new BFF or anything.
I got behind him and let him lead me out the door, the barrel of my gun against his spine so that he’d block the view of it from anyone coming toward us. Didn’t want to alarm the neighbors any more than necessary after they’d seen me get brutally smacked around on the sidewalk the other night.
As we stepped outside, me swiveling like a turret gunner, keeping an eye out for any accomplices the guy might have brought along, he gave me a look that might have been disappointment mixed with mild amusement. “Do you really not know me, Bobby?”
I stared, but although there was something familiar about his way of talking, maybe even about his slight, small form, I couldn’t put my finger on it. For a half-instant I even wondered if he might be my old top-kicker Leo from the Harps, back from the dead, but that wasn’t who he reminded me of, and Leo would never have played a little game like this: if he ever came back I’d find him sitting on my chest in the middle of the night demanding to know whether I was planning on sleeping until fucking noon.
My gun hidden away now in my coat pocket (but my finger still on the trigger) I walked with the stranger to Main Street before turning toward Beeger Square. The fountain in the square (mostly known as “Rocket Jude” because the centerpiece is a Bufano statue of our patron saint that’s sort of shaped like a missile) is a major hang-out spot, and I knew nobody would give us a second look, but I liked the idea of having people around while I found out what this guy’s play was going to be.
We settled onto one of the benches. I left about a foot between us to make it harder for him to grab me. He must have seen this little bit of tradecraft because he shook his head. “Still nothing, Bobby? As much as we talk to each other?”
I stared at him, irritated (and still more than a bit nervous) and then suddenly I knew who he was. It hardly seemed possible. “Temuel? Archangel Temuel?”
“Ssshhh.” He actually put his fingers to his lips. “You needn’t shout it.”
I sat there chewing over what to say next. Stunned is not the word. The higher angels only appear on Earth for important things, and when they do it’s like one of the Hollywood elite showing up at your birthday party. Not that Temuel was that glory-hound type. But that was just the problem—he wasn’t the type to come to Earth at all, let alone to hang out in my grubby little apartment.
“What are you doing here?” I finally asked. “I mean, is this . . . official business? Like, Heaven-dot-org stuff?”
“What do you think?”
I swallowed. I’m not usually at a loss for words, but I simply didn’t know what to say. Did this mean somebody had blown the whistle on me about Caz? Or was it the feather? Was Temuel here to discreetly terminate my employment? My finger tightened a little on the trigger of my automatic, but that was reflex. If my bosses wanted to cross me off the employment roll, a few silver slugs weren’t going to help me any. At last, for lack of anything else to offer, I asked, “What do you want?”
“I hear you’re interested in going to Hell. I’m willing to help you.”
Hearing that was not hugely different than getting slapped across the face. “Huh? What? I mean, why?” It’s hard to make intelligent conversation when your already feeble grip on How Things Work has just proved a lot more slippery than you ever suspected. “Why would you want to help me do that?”
“Why, so you’ll help me.”
My archangel proceeded to tell me what he wanted and what he’d give me in return. None of it made the least amount of sense, not then; it was all I could do just to listen without shaking him and shouting, What’s going on here? What is my boss doing here on Earth, undercover, telling me how he’s going to help me reach Hell so I can save my demon lover? (Not that he ever mentioned that part: if he knew about Caz, he was keeping quiet about it.) But the things he said sounded ge
nuine, as did what he suggested he could arrange for me. And when he asked me his return favor, which I had assumed would be something on the lines of emptying the ocean with a teaspoon, what he wanted was surprisingly simple. Stupidly simple, even.
“That’s all you want? You just want me to find a guy and tell him that?”
“I want you to find someone in Hell, Bobby. It’s not all that easy.”
“But still . . .” I shook my head. Questions were good—questions would keep me alive—but too many questions might lose me this chance. Yes, of course, every bit of self-preservation in me was screaming “trap!” but how could it be? I mean, if the rest of my superiors knew as much about me as Temuel seemed to, I’d already given them enough rope to hang me and the entire Mormon Tabernacle Choir, too. No, the Mule claimed he was doing this alone, and so far that was the only explanation that made sense.
“Just tell me how you found out,” I said. “About Hell, I mean.” Then it came to me. “My phone. Clarence said he tapped it or bugged it somehow when he was tailing Sam. The bug is still there.”
Temuel shook his head, but he didn’t outright deny it.
“Tell me you’re the only one in Heaven who knows.”
“I’m the only one, Bobby. For now. But I can’t guarantee you’ll get away with this forever.”
We talked for a while longer, and he gave me the rest of the details—you’ll get them too, but not yet—and then he stood, our little chat beside Rocket Jude apparently at an end. I wasn’t holding the gun anymore as we walked back across the broad square, but I wasn’t feeling much safer than I had on the way over. I was clearly into something big and deep, in way past my ability to survive unaided, and the only person offering me a lifeline was someone who, any time he chose, could have me busted down to Unidentified Angelic Smear, Second Class.
Twilight had turned to near dark. Sidewalks were empty now, but the streets were full of cars, late commuters heading home, everyone else on their way downtown for movies or dinner. A light, misty rain swept through, just enough to prickle my jacket with little droplets and make my face damp.
As we neared the end of Main Street an angular shadow suddenly peeled itself from between a pair of dumpsters and stepped out in front of us. It was dark, no streetlights, but I knew exactly who that wiry, crouching frame belonged to.
“It so slick,” Smyler said. “It so smart. It wait and wait.”
“Shit.” I fumbled my gun out of my pocket. Temuel stared at the scrawny apparition. My boss looked frightened, which was not the thing I wanted to see just then. “Stay there,” I said to the thing with the long blade, trying to make my voice sound firm and worth obeying. “I don’t want to shoot you—I’d rather talk—but I’ll blow you into little pieces if you take even one step.”
“I can’t be here,” Temuel said in a breathless rush. “I can’t risk . . .”
And then he was gone, just gone, as if he hadn’t been standing right beside me. When I turned back a stunned second later, the killer with the underslung jaw and a four-edged knife gripped in its hand was loping toward me, a skinny shadow with the staring, excited eyes of an insane child.
eleven
true names
THIS TIME I had a gun in my hand. This time I was pushing silver. We obviously weren’t going to get a chance to discuss Smyler’s vendetta or who had put him up to it, so I aimed at his midsection and started pulling the trigger. I put three right through him.
I mean that literally, too: as the gun bucked in my hand, I saw the streetlight at the end of the alley through the big old holes the slugs left, as if the crazy little fucker was made of stars. Then the holes were gone—maybe I just lost the angle—and Smyler suddenly went sideways up the wall, two feet and one hand sticking him there like a fly as he skittered toward me, the long, pointy thing swinging in his free hand, aimed right at my face.
I threw myself down. He just missed me, but his knife tore my collar. Was he trying to kill me or just incapacitate me? And how the hell could three silver slugs zip through him and not even slow him down?
I did my best to turn hitting the ground into rolling myself back upright. It was hard to get a fix on my attacker in the deep shadows of the alley. For a moment I thought he had vanished, then I saw him skittering down the wall toward me like a spider. What the fuck was he? Or rather, what had my enemies turned him into? He was just pissing on gravity like it didn’t matter, like I was fighting a cage match against M.C. Escher.
I wasn’t going to waste any more bullets until I could put one into his head from up close. I still had the cosh in my sleeve, but that hadn’t been a huge amount of use the last time, so I grabbed a lid off a nearby garbage can and turned around just as Smyler bounced up onto the wall once more and then dropped on me. I was able to get the lid up, but Smyler’s bayonet punched through it like a ballpoint through typing paper and the point ended up an inch from my right eye. I twisted hard on the lid, doing my best to yank the hilt of the four-edged knife out of his hand. I didn’t quite manage it, but he had to change his position on top of me to compensate, so I rolled backward and took him with me, holding tight until I heard his head hit the street. I liked that sound. I felt a surge of adrenaline, and for once it didn’t just feel like terror.
If it came to endurance, the rubbery bastard was going to outlast me, so I drove into him as hard as I could, like a lineman on a blocking sled, putting the lid right against him and plowing him back onto the concrete as he started to get up. As soon as I felt hard ground stop us I scrambled on top of him and just began hitting him as hard in the face as I could with the can lid. After smacking him with it at least a dozen times I threw the lid to the side, his blade still stuck in it, then kept on with my fist and a chunk of concrete I’d found. I beat my own knuckles bloody, cracking Smyler’s head against the pavement again and again, so loud that I could hear it echo in the narrow space. He was scratching at me, but not accomplishing much more. I dropped once on his belly with my knee, then got up and began kicking. I could hear sirens—someone had finally called the police.
At a certain point there’s no explaining. I think it was the red mist, like the Vikings used to get. Everything that had happened to me, everything that had seeped in and painfully corroded me, the frustration, the anger, most of all the terror, it all came out. I kicked that horrible little thing until I swear I kicked all its bones to pieces. I kicked his head the same way. I kicked blood into the air. I kicked until the limp thing that had been Smyler just snagged the end of my foot each time like a broken kite. Then I fell back against the alley wall between two garbage cans, gasping and wheezing and trying not to cry. Even after what I’d just done, I felt like the victim of a prison shower rape.
Then the crushed, misshapen head lifted on the broken neck. It contorted, seemed to pull its entire body up toward the disjointed neck, then began to shrug it all back into shape as the bones knitted together and the creature remade itself. It took only seconds to happen, and it shook me so much I could only stare gape-jawed. I couldn’t even guess how much power Eligor must be burning to let Smyler do this. Just to get me? Fucking Bobby Dollar, tiny little thorn in the grand duke’s very vast side? It was like smuggling in a nuclear weapon to bump off a squealer.
His body almost normal already, my enemy stared at me. The blood-soaked hood still framed it, but the face was healed, the dead gray skin gone tight over the mummy bones. Those ugly little bottom teeth jutted—Smyler was smiling.
“Oh, it like this, Bobby Dollar! Said he don’t give up. Yes! More! It want your heart.” And then he pulled his crazy knife out of the garbage can lid and leaped up onto the wall and stuck there like a lizard basking in a Tijuana courtyard.
I’d lost my gun somewhere in the red rage, but it didn’t really matter. I couldn’t beat him. As long as Eligor or whoever was pouring this much power into keeping him alive and functioning on Earth, I was going to lose. I had nothing left to fight with but the bloody chunk of concrete in my hand. I
backed myself along the wall toward a doorway, where I would have the best chance of defending myself, but the body I was wearing was not going to magically repair puncture wounds in seconds like his did, and he probably wasn’t planning to kill me right away in any case. He, or at least his master, wanted to know where the feather was, and I had no doubt he would happily take his time finding out.
The sirens were getting really loud now.
I had lost him again in the shadows, but I spotted movement and realized he had slipped down to the ground where he was harder to see, hidden by the shadow of a dumpster. I braced myself, guessing he wouldn’t wait long. I was right.
Smyler came across the alley like a crab, zigzagging sideways at crazy angles. I caught a glint of his sharklike stare, then the longer smear of reflected streetlight that was his blade. I ducked on pure instinct and the bayonet whipped invisibly past my ear. I only knew it was there when it cut my cheek coming back the other direction.
“Bobby!” someone said. “Close your eyes!”
And I did, a mere moment late, just slow enough that I saw the first burst of fiery light. The rictus mask of Smyler as he loomed over me, his eyes wide but his pupils suddenly no bigger than the heads of ants, was burned onto my retina.
The light burned brighter and brighter even through my closed eyelids, even through the lingering afterimage of Smyler’s terrible face, flaring so intensely that my own head seemed to turn all white inside. Smyler shrieked. Despite everything I had done to him, it was the first time I’d heard him in distress. Then the whiteness was too much, and I fell down and pulled the dark around me for a little while.
When I could think again I realized I was crouching on my hands and knees, my forehead against the cold pavement. I struggled upright. Smyler was gone. Temuel, or at least his human form, stood beside me. His hand looked like it was in an ex-ray machine, the skin still glowing so deeply pinkish-orange that I could see the bones beneath the muscle. He offered me his other hand to help me up. It felt pretty normal.